


In Need of Repair

by Wuzzler



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, NSFW, OCs - Freeform, Post Civil War, Wakanda, civil war spoilers, eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:05:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 94,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7428568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wuzzler/pseuds/Wuzzler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's recovery after the events of Civil War, and the people he meets.  One in particular.  (I'm bad at summaries so that's all you get)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please point out any and all errors, there's only so much editing I can do on my own. Also, this chapter is a lot of OC introductory stuff, so please bare with it. I aim to post new chapters on Fridays.
> 
> *new note*  
> Reminder that I wrote this before anything of Black Panther was known. Wakanda is so much cooler than I wrote it and Shuri is just the best.

   “So he can’t see or hear anything?” Kit asked, her face close to the glass.  She wasn’t supposed to be in there, not that late and certainly not without Khnel’s permission or lingering presence, but Yen had snuck her in anyway.

   “It’s not like coma, he’s completely in stasis,” Yen informed her.  “He doesn’t even have brain waves right now.  Everything is frozen.”

   “Sounds painful.”  Kit stepped back from the cryogenic freezer, shuddering at the idea of being put in one.  And yet, James Buchanan Barnes had been frozen and unfrozen multiple times, even before the technology had reached its current point.

   “If his brain functioned and was able to registered pain, then perhaps it would be,” Yen grinned at her, a mildly spooky sight as his tablet lit his face from below.  All the computer equipment in the room was currently powered down and dark.

   “It’s probably for the best he doesn’t have to see this view,” Kit commented, looking past Yen and some more equipment at the expanse of glass across the space.  The permanently misty jungle crouched in the weak moonlight, revealing and concealing the massive stone leopard, the Black Panther.  Kit always wished it faced the other way, in a protective stance over the facility as opposed to a menacing one.  Still, it did a great job of reminding people who was in charge and the reason the facility existed to begin with.  Since the Black Panther—the man this time, not the statue—had also become the king of Wakanda, things around the facility had been jostled and restructured.  Everyone was still trying to re-establish their position and importance, worried that they might be let go, although no one had been in the three years since the change over.

   “I quite like the view,” Yen commented, poking away at his tablet instead of looking.  “At least, when it’s daylight and there’s a view to be seen.”

   For Kit, the view was better at night.  Her replacement eyes still weren’t perfect, and the current pair took in too much light.  She had the reverse effect to everyone else, being able to see very well at night but was blinded by too much white during the daytime.

   “Is there any way I can… I don’t know, _access_ him?  While he’s in stasis?”

   Yen raised his eyebrows at her.  “To do what?”

   “What do you think?  Build him a new arm.”

   “We thoroughly scanned both him and what remains of his prosthetic.  I’ve emailed the scans to you.”

   “Scans,” Kit huffed.  “If I was working from scratch, maybe that would do, but I’m not.  I need to see and feel what his shoulder is like with my own eyes and hands.”  Not that she had eyes or hands.  In the same incident that had blinded her, Kit had lost both hands.  She now had her own mechanical prosthetics attached to the remains of her flesh, which ended in roughly the middle of her forearms.  Having helped design and build them herself, she assumed this made her the perfect candidate to repair the damage to Barnes.

   “Well, I can talk to Khnel again for you if you want,” Yen offered.  “We’re close to figuring out how to correct the damage to his mind.  Once we’ve gotten that nailed down, he’ll be taken out of stasis and you should be allowed to poke around.  If that’s what he wants.”

   Kit frowned.  She’d rather work on a patient who wasn’t conscious.  Not only could she work faster, not having to ask various permissions, but it made her more comfortable.  She didn’t like when people stared.

Yen read and understood her expression as the only person in the facility she truly called her friend.  He sighed.  “I’ll talk to the cryo team and see if there’s something we can set up for you.”

   “Thank you, Yen,” she gave him her brightest smile, which he returned in mock form.  “It’ll help a lot too, being able to work on him while he’s out.  That shoulder mount is probably old as balls, and could use an upgrade.”

   “So you’ll also need my direct help in this endeavour.”  It wasn’t a question.  Yen was one of the best medical doctors within the facility, and had been specifically assigned to Barnes’ case.  Not only that, but he had experience with robust, mechanical prosthetic mounts, having been the one to attach Kit’s.

   “Khnel won’t say no, would she?”  Kit didn’t want to get Yen into any actual trouble with his boss.  “I mean, he’s going to need a new arm.”

   “He will,” Yen nodded his agreement.  “I just think Khnel planned to have you build one _after_ he was back on his feet and well.”

   “I think it’ll help his wellbeing to not have to spend so much time armless.  Have you ever tried doing stuff one handed?  It’s frustrating.”

   “Khnel will have the final say on that.”

   Dr. Shemma Khnel was in charge of the team that was to take care of Barnes.  As both a psychologist and a neurologist, she was exceptionally qualified to help him with his brain troubles.  Kit just wished the woman would stop trying to make her a patient.

   “So other than the brain problems and the arm thing, he’s physically fine?” Kit partially changed topics.

   “Doctor-patient confidentiality still applies here,” Yen reminded her.

   “Yeah, of course.  But is there anything I need to know before I start considering designs?”

   “Well, he’s a super soldier.  We haven’t been able to isolate the serum that was used so we don’t know the specific changes, but he’s stronger than the average human if you’re worried about weight.”

   “Did you see that last arm?  Clearly weight was not a problem for him.”

   “What are you two doing in here?”

   The lights snapped on, and Kit’s world washed over with brightness.  At least the sudden brightness didn’t cause pain, what with her eyes being false.  She had to take her sunglasses out of her pocket and put them on before she could see who had entered, and by then Yen was already lying.

   “I like to check on Barnes at both regular and irregular intervals to make sure the machinery is functioning correctly.”  That part might not have been a lie, but the following part was.  “Marcellus and I had been in the middle of a discussion, so I asked her to accompany me.”

   Kit was relieved to see it wasn’t Khnel who had entered the space, but Dr. Esser of the cryogenics team.

   “Of course the machinery is functioning correctly, provided you’re not touching what you shouldn’t be,” Esser said, getting rather bristly about it.

   “I would never think to touch anything without knowing one-hundred percent what I’m doing.  It’s just that we’ve never frozen a super solider before, so I’m taking extra precautions,” Yen placated her.  He was very good at that, at making everyone his friend, at always finding middle ground.  He oozed calm and serene feelings, which was probably how Kit had come to like him.  “What brings you here?”

   “I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d take a walk to the gardens when I saw the light from your tablet,” Esser slowly settled.  “I didn’t realize that Ms. Marcellus was with you, so I thought it strange.”

Esser’s eyes glanced Kit’s way, then returned to Yen.  There were a number of people used to seeing her prosthetics, and the large aviators frequently covering half her face, but there were still some who wouldn’t look directly at her for too long.  Kit told herself so many times that it didn’t bother her, that she had come to believe it didn’t.

   “I’m sorry we caused you concern.  I’ve just finished up here, and actually had some questions I was hoping to ask someone on your team.  Would you mind if I accompanied you to the gardens?”

   “Not at all.”

   Yen moved for the exit, Esser falling in beside him as she turned the lights back out.  Kit trailed behind the two doctors, one from a PhD and the other being a medical doctorate.  Esser took another quick glance at Kit, this time over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t trying to stay behind in the cryo lab.

   “I should be heading to bed.  I’ll see you tomorrow, Yen?” Kit spoke, stepping to one side in order to head a down the hallway that would take her to the elevators and, eventually, her room.

   “Yes, I should have answers for your questions by the afternoon.  Goodnight, Kit.”

   As Kit walked to the elevator and rode down to the floor her room was located on, she wondered if Yen would tell Esser that his questions were really coming from her.  While certainly not the only one in the facility without a PhD, they were definitely less common, and were seen as being beneath the more snobbish scientists and researchers.

   Kit liked living in the facility.  There were others who had housing accommodations elsewhere, occasionally using some tiny, college dorm like rooms for late nights, but Kit was part of an ever growing collective who just found it more convenient to stay there permanently.  She thought it was very much like living on a college campus, especially with the shared cafeteria and mini kitchens, but with the perks of having her own bathroom.  While Yen was the only one she considered her friend, she had plenty of acquaintances, and it was really convenient to know that if you needed someone, they usually weren’t very far.  Kit’s room was also her main workspace, and was adjacent to an open common area.  The wall to her space was made of smart glass, of which she could adjust the level of transparency and darkness as needed.  It was really useful when she wanted the door closed to block out sound, but wanted to let people know she was in there and accessible if they had questions.

   Pulling open the door that was made of the same glass, then she waved a hand over part of the holographic panel beside the inside.  It adjusted the glass to her currently preferred work setting, which was about the same shade of darkness as her sunglasses so that the light from the common area wouldn’t bother her.  While she had said she was going to sleep, she wasn’t.  Yen probably knew that, that she was just saying something to excuse herself, but Esser wouldn’t know, since the normal housing on this floor was at the other end, and she probably lived on a different floor anyway.

Kit’s room was simple.  Off to the far left, and against a section of the glass wall that always remained opaque, was her twin-sized bed with its little reading light on top of the wide headboard beside where she charged her laptop and tablet.  The back wall was all desk, made mostly of steel, and covered in a scattering of wires, tools, and materials that she hadn’t bothered to return to the metal cupboards bolted to the wall above.  Against the glass wall to the right was her drafting table, and pushed against the regular wall beyond that, was what Yen affectionately referred to as ‘the world’s oldest couch.’  Along with the couch, she had a desk chair to roll around in on the laminate floor, a stool she liked for the drafting table, and a simple, wooden, straight-backed chair for visitors that didn’t trust the couch.  There were no actual windows in Kit’s quarters, the rectangle broken only by a little nook that interrupted the middle of the desk, which contained a door to her small bathroom on one side, and her walk-in closet that was roughly the same size on the other.  Any natural light to reach Kit’s room had to come through the windows at one end of the elongated common area, at which her place was at the opposing end of.  Dirty, beat up, small, and smelling similar to garage that had never seen a combustion engine, Kit thought it was the perfect space for her.  Most others had actual rooms like tiny apartments minus the kitchen, but Kit liked being in her workshop, where she could actualize any ideas right away, no matter when they came to her.  She wasn’t even bothered by the glass wall as others might be.  It let her look out onto the going-ons of the facility without being a direct part of them.  It made her feel not so alone.

   Grabbing her tablet and then locating a fresh pad of oversized sketching paper, Kit slapped them down on her drafting table and set to work on some rough designs.

 

***

 

   Kit found herself nervous as she stared at the table across the room.  Barnes lay flat upon it, his head and body covered by electrodes, small pipes, wires, and plating.  The skin that she could see was practically blue, and his chest failed to move with breath.  The cryo team had managed to do what Yen had asked of them, keeping the man frozen while outside the tank.  Still, this man was once an assassin.  A brainwashed assassin, sure, it wasn’t really his fault, but that brainwashing had come with a lot of freezing.  Despite the complete lack of life signs, Kit could imagine him coming awake, being scared, remembering his past awakenings, and just murdering the closest person.  And soon that person was going to be her.

   “Okay, Ms. Marcellus, come on over,” Dr. Khnel gestured for Kit to approach.

It turned out that the medical team could also make use of having Barnes out of the tube for a little while, although the cryo team had insisted on a strict time limit.  Kit couldn’t waste even a second with hesitation, so she hurriedly crossed the room despite her reservations.  It was his face that calmed her nerves.  It looked asleep, harmless even, despite her knowing otherwise.  Even while completely ignoring the arm, he still looked wounded somehow.  Kit wondered if she had ever looked like that.

   Even though her hands were metal and could be stuck in certain acids, or even fire, to kill any bacteria that might be clinging to them, Kit wore a pair of medical gloves at Yen’s request, and Khnel’s insistence.  She placed her fingers first against his skin where it met his shoulder mount.  It was cold, weirdly so.  Kit didn’t like it.  She withdrew her hands and took a small pin-type tool out of her pocket, which she used to press a tiny, recessed button in the forearm of each arm.  Usually she only turned off her ability to feel temperatures when she was dealing with very hot things, like when welding, soldering, or helping someone get something out of an oven.  This was the first time she turned them off due to cold, and it wasn’t much cold at that.

   Placing her hands back on Barnes, she poked and prodded where the skin met metal.  They had placed him on a special table for her, one that exposed the back of his shoulder as well, although she needed to crouch down, pretty much lying on her back on the floor in order to get a proper look.

   “This is gross,” she commented to Yen after inspecting the skin.  “I’m surprised he’s not full of infections.”

   “I think he is.”  Yen’s response surprised her.  “I think that whatever serum they gave him has been keeping it from getting bad enough to kill him.”

   Kit removed the fabric cap from off the end of the stub.  Someone had clearly shaved down the sharp points of metal and tucked the loose wires up inside.  She teased them free, then pushed her sunglasses up in order to look into the arm itself.  She straightened the shoulder, studying what moved inside.  At just the right angle, she could some of the flesh attachment.

   “Oh jesus,” she commented, bringing the back of her hand up to her mouth.  “Have you looked at that?”

   She moved away so that Yen could peer inside with a penlight.

   “The scar tissue is highly irritated and swollen,” he agreed with what she thought she saw.  “He most likely felt constant pain.”

   “I’m going to need to remove this whole thing,” Kit told Khnel.

   “Can you do it in an hour?  That’s all the time we have left before the cryo team insists we put him back in.”

   “I’ll do what I can.  Anything I don’t get done today, can be done the next time he’s allowed out.”

   Kit set to work, glad she had thought to bring her large toolbox with her.  Yen assisted, although it was mostly in the capacity of handing Kit what she needed.  The remaining panels of the shoulder were tough, she wouldn’t have been able to get them off if her wrists weren’t machines.  Some she had to leave in place, as they were fused with the skin and would require surgery to disconnect, which they didn’t have time for.  Any piece that went into him, she left alone.  By the time she finished, Barns didn’t have a shoulder anymore.  Of the outer plates, there only remained the ridges that bonded to the skin.  There was also a metal strut that was probably his collar bone poking out, a patch of smaller metal plates that related to his ribcage in some way, some circuitry, and a couple of wires continued to dangle out of the mass.

   “They must have let his body heal into it,” Yen commented on the extensive scar tissue within the unit.  “They didn’t cap it off correctly.”

   “It’s a mess,” Kit agreed.  She asked for new scans of the area to be made and sent to her, then stepped back so that Barns could be returned to his tube.

   “We shouldn’t do surgery while he’s frozen,” Khnel decided.

   “I’m going to need to rebuild his whole shoulder,” Kit pointed out.  “Which means removing the rest of that mess.”

   “I understand.  When we decide to waken him, we’ll sedate him first, and you can perform the necessary surgery then.”

   “You’re assuming I’ll be able to do it all in one go, both the removal and the rebuild.”

   “You’re saying you can’t?” Khnel raised an eyebrow at her.  This was a test.

   “I don’t know.  Maybe,” Kit admitted.  “If Yen thinks his body can handle it.”

   “Considering what it’s withstood so far, I think it should be able to handle the extended surgery,” Yen told her.  “Not to mention the added bonus that we wouldn’t have to worry about the cryo team setting the time limit.”

   “This is also provided that nothing goes wrong, and there are no surprises,” Kit continued.

   “Do what you can, and let me know what you think before we wake him,” Khnel decided.

   Kit could’ve left then, there was nothing for her to do, but she hung around anyway.  She watched as Dr. Esser and other members of the cryo team removed pieces of the apparatus that kept him in frozen suspension, and carefully transferred him back into the tube.  His shoulder was so grisly now, Kit wished she could do something for it immediately.  It looked like someone had carved a fair sized chunk out of him.  Barnes would never have to see it, but that peaceful, sleeping face was such a contrast to his non-existent shoulder that it made Kit’s insides squirm.  Here was a man, not just an assassin or a killer, and he certainly didn’t deserve the butchery that had befallen him.

   “Can I see what you’ve worked up so far?”  Yen drew Kit out of her contemplation.  “I have some input on the control features.”

   “Of course.”  Kit glanced at Barnes again, but then spotted Khnel staring at her.  The woman had her scrutiny expression on, so Kit made sure to leave with haste.

   For the rest of the day, Kit continued to make up schematics, focusing on the shoulder mount, taking into account what she had seen and felt.  The rest of the arm could come later, but that shoulder needed to be made quickly, yet perfectly.  She wanted to have the planning phase done and over with by the end of the day so that she could spend Barnes’ remaining time in cyro making the physical thing.  Yen had a lot of good input, especially now that the new scans had allowed them to get deeper, to see more of what was happening inside.

   “They tried to upgrade it as they went,” Kit commented, flipping back and forth between the new scans and the old documents that had been found about Barnes’ ‘creation.’

   “We’d be dealing with a lot more problems if they hadn’t.”  Yen sat on the couch, the starch white coat he always wore and ramrod straight posture contrasting with its rusty red fabric and lumpy form.

   “I’m still impressed with the control systems.”

   “Of course you are, they run your own hands after all.”

   The connection between Kit’s hands and mind wouldn’t have been possible without the Winter Soldier.  After her loss, she had used the information found about his cybernetic arm as the base upon which to build her own.  At the start, those Hydra Russians were way ahead of their time, and managed to keep a couple of steps ahead with their upgrades, but Kit liked to think she had surpassed where they would have been, had they still been around.  And now she was using that knowledge to clean up the mess they had made.

   Yen stayed and worked with Kit as long as he was able, but eventually his other duties pulled him away.  Kit stayed seated at her drafting table, only moving when her legs pained her or she had to use the toilet.  Knowing how focused she was, Yen brought by dinner.  She only noticed after the final designs were complete and the food had gone cold.  Her stomach was growling for the deep bowl of cavatelli, smothered in some sort of thick mushroom sauce, and she fired off an email to thank Yen while wolfing half of it down.  He’d probably criticize her for eating so late.  Or laugh at her.  Kit could never be sure which reaction she’d great.

   Feeling a desire to move, Kit got up and stepped out into the common area, carrying the remaining food with her.  The other labs that adjoined the area were either dark or their walls were opaque.  If anyone was working late, Kit couldn’t see them.  She wandered the hallways, which had their lights dimmed for the night.  Kit assumed she looked ridiculous, cradling her bowl of pasta to her chest while she continued to eat out of it.  She was barefoot, having left her boots in her room, and was wearing one of her rare, ratty T-shirts that actually showed the entirety of her arms.  Just as her eyes were usually covered by aviators, her arms were most often hidden by long sleeves.  Tonight she was feeling good though, proud of her work, which included herself.

   Without really knowing where she was going, she was surprised to find herself up two levels and outside the room that Barnes’ cryogenics tube was contained within.

   _Crap_.  She had been thinking about her work too much, and so had been drawn to the recipient of said work.  Scraping the last of the pasta into her mouth, she looked about the area, hoping no one had seen her.  It was as quiet up here as it had been down on her level.  Still, Dr. Khnel’s office was right there, in sight.  Kit focused on the seams around the edges of her door, trying to determine if a light was on inside, even a small one.  As far as she could tell, there wasn’t.  Khnel was a stickler for routines, and would have gone home hours ago, but one could never be too careful.

   “Crap,” Kit whispered aloud this time, knowing she was going to have to go in and look at Barnes now that she was here.

   Ducking through the door, she scurried into the darkness, out of range of the dim lights in the hall.  Without Yen and his glowing tablet, no one should be able to see her if they passed by.  Of course, if someone decided to check the security cameras, they’d see her easily due to both their night vision and thermal sensing.  Features she had helped create.  It was too late now, though, she was already here.  As long as she didn’t touch anything, there was no reason for anyone to look at the feeds.

   Barnes’ shoulder was more awful than she remembered.  Having looked at scans all day, she had forgotten the raw feeling of pain the actual thing exuded.  She remembered what her arms had looked like the moment she lost her hands; the ragged, bloody mess where there should have been more of her.  It was the last thing she had seen with her real eyes.  Tears sprang forth, unwanted, but Yen had been careful to keep her tear ducts intact when he put in her first pair of false eyes, and so she had to deal with them.  Kit pressed the bowl harder against her chest, a porcelain life raft until the storm of emotions had finished passing by.  Afterward, she was happy to see she hadn’t cracked the bowl, as that had been a problem when she had first had the cybernetics installed.

   Kit ended up studying Barnes’ face in the darkness.  She tried to reconcile the war hero, with the assassin, with the fugitive, with the man before her now.  Who was he after all that?

 

***

 

   The room smelled of blood, metal, and disinfectant.  There was no one in the operating room who didn’t need to be there.  Yen had two nurses assisting him by handing him his tools, cleaning his tools, mopping his brow, and being an extra pair of hands when needed.  Kit had only one assistant, another mechanic who would know what she was asking for when she asked for it.  He mostly stood against the wall, as out of the way as possible.  While chosen for his ability to handle blood, the man still preferred not to look directly at the surgery when he didn’t have to.  Along with the anaesthesiologist, who had been a part of the cryogenics team, monitoring Barnes’ vitals, that put six people in the room, not including Barnes himself.

   Kit and Yen worked side by side, talking each other through everything they were doing.  They started with removing the last of the old shoulder mount, which required just over an hour of careful cutting and the mopping up of blood, with the occasional metal strut being immediately replaced as it was in place of bone.  Yen handled everything organic, while Kit only ever touched the tech.  Drawing out the pus from the infected areas required Kit to turn her face away for a minute.

   Applying the new shoulder mount went smoothly, and added a new smell to the room.  To properly bind the edge panels to the skin, some burning was required.  Kit wouldn’t be able to eat meat for the next two days.  Still, she kept working.  They had practised the surgery three times using a digital simulation, and while some of the most gruesome sights and smells hadn’t been a part of it, it did mean that Kit always knew what to do next.  It provided her with focus.

   Layer by careful layer, she and Yen built Barnes’ new shoulder, connecting it to the older neural hookups that they were unable to replace without open brain surgery.  That was something Barnes would have to decide if he wanted.  Kit worried about the old tech not getting along with the new, but there was no reason to think that would happen.  Unfortunately, there was also no way to completely test it until after Barnes was awake.

   Kit had designed the shoulder mount all the way to the upper bicep area.  When he awoke, Barnes would have a shoulder that should move exactly the same as the one of flesh, bone, and muscle he had on the other side.

   By the end, Kit was exhausted.  The surgery took a total of four hours and twelve minutes, during which no one took break.  Neither Kit nor Yen had focused on anything else the entire time.  It might not be the last either.  Kit knew that if Barnes’ body attempted to reject the new additions, they would have to go in again.  Hopefully, the super soldier serum still coursing through his veins would keep that from happening.  His body had accepted the first arm, after all, and it wasn’t attached in a medical facility as advanced, or probably even as clean, as this one.

   The last of the balms and bandages were applied over the wounded flesh by Yen.  He could’ve gotten one of his nurses to do it, but he liked to see everything through to the end himself.  Kit stayed by his side while he did this, her work complete, but not abandoning the patient or doctor until it was over.  Her eyes travelled from Barnes’ shoulder to his face.  It had more colour now that he wasn’t frozen.  The anaesthesiologist had quite the time making sure he stayed under.  His body burned through drugs faster than a normal human, but extensive tests had been done before hand so that the woman was just as prepared as Kit and Yen had been.  He slept peacefully through the whole thing, not even aware that it was happening.

   With the operation complete, Barnes could be moved to a recovery room.  It was on the same level as Kit’s room, but across the facility with the living quarters, and it had its own window that revealed the misty jungle canopy.  Yen went with the bed to make sure all the IVs stayed properly hooked up.  Kit followed in support of her friend, even though Dr. Khnel met them the moment they were out of the operating room and came along.

   “It should be another hour before he starts to waken,” Khnel told the pair as the bed was parked.  “You both did well.  Go get something to eat and take a break.”

   “Call me the moment he’s up so that I can check on him,” Yen insisted.

   “I will.”  Khnel took a chair from beside a table in the room and placed it beside the bed.  Barnes wouldn’t be alone for a single moment, not until after he was fully conscious and made aware of everything he needed to know.  Since Khnel would be his therapist here, it made the most sense to have her be the first person to talk to him.

   “Come on, Yen.”  Kit placed her hand on the doctor’s shoulder and guided him out of the room.  “Do want to head to the cafeteria or make something in one of the mini kitchens?”

   “I hear the cafeteria has subs today,” Yen answered wearily.

   “Subs it is then.”  Kit couldn’t help but glance back at the room while they walked away from it.  “You’ll tell me if everything is functioning correctly, right?”

   “Of course, but I don’t see why you won’t be able to ask Barnes that yourself.”

   “Khnel wants to limit his contact with people to begin with.  You’re his doctor, so of course you get to be on the list.  I’ve been deemed unnecessary.”

Yen sighed, but made no offer to get her onto that list.  “I’ll let you know.”

   As they walked, Kit’s mind was already turning to the next step when it came to constructing the actual arm.  She had an idea about how to make the elbow joint stronger than the initial plan she had come up with.</p>


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any errors. There's only so much editing I can do on my own.

When Bucky woke up, it was different. Normally, coming out of the freeze was painful. His skin would feel like it was on fire and every muscle would ache. But this time, there was no pain, just an exhaustion, a fog over his mind. His eyelids felt as though they were held down by stones, but he found he could open them. T’Challa’s facility must have a completely different thawing method than the one Hydra used. It was probably why he wasn’t afraid right away.

“James? James, are you awake?” a soft, accented voice spoke from beside his bed.

His eyes opened and closed several times as he attempted to focus. The light was pale, off white toward a grey-blue. The light of an overcast sky. He realized he was drugged.

“It’s all right, James, you’re perfectly safe,” the voice continued, in response to another sound in the room: a heart monitor. His heart rate had elevated, shortening the gaps between soft beeps.

The quick shot of adrenaline brought the world into focus. At a glance, Bucky took in his surroundings. To his left, a massive window overlooking a jungle provided the main source of light. He was in a room painted a sterile, soft grey, containing the bed he was lying in, a small table with three chairs around it, a low dresser, and an overstuffed chair that brought the only colour—dark green—into the room. A door directly across the space led into a bathroom, while another door, the exit, lay to his right. Also to his right, farther to the side and much closer to him than the door, was a woman sitting in a chair that matched those around the table. She had a regal look, a long neck accented with thin golden chains, and shown off by exceptionally short hair. Her dark skin contrasted with the pale wall beyond her, and the equally pale suit she wore. Her features were sharp, but she had used her makeup to soften the angles. Most likely on purpose. Everything here contrasted with the location of Bucky’s memories, of the place he was used to thawing out in.

“Are you with me, James?” the woman asked, a faint smile on her lips.

“Bucky,” he told her, his voice croaking. “I prefer Bucky.”

“Bucky, yes. Captain Rogers may have mentioned that.”

“He here?”

“Not at present, no, although he’s visited a few times. I’m Dr. Khnel.” The woman held forth her hand. She had long, thin fingers. Bucky shook it. Briefly. He noticed that her skin was very dry.

“Have you fixed me?” He didn’t feel fixed. Of course the drugs were still in his system, so that would be affecting his thought process.

“You’re still a work in progress,” the doc admitted. “We’ve already started on the arm, and I’m to help you with the mental side of your troubles. A plan has been put in place, I believe we can _fix_ you, as you say, but it’ll take time and I need you awake.”

Bucky turned his head away to look at the swath of cotton padding ringing his shoulder. The metal coming out of it looked different.

“Our prosthetist thought it would be best to start from scratch. Everything that could be replaced, has been. The arm itself is still in development, but it’ll attach easily to what you have now. Please don’t try to move it until the doctor is here.”

“Aren’t you the doctor?” Bucky rolled his head along his pillow to study her face again.

“I’m a neurosurgeon and psychologist, so I’ll be dealing with your brain. Your body has been taken care of by Dr. Yen thus far. I’ve already messaged him, so he should be here shortly.”

“A brain doc, huh?” It explained the extremely studious nature he found in her dark eyes. He felt that every sound and move he made was being carefully watched. “So how do you plan to fix what’s wrong up there?”

“First, you should know that there might be a need for surgery. We haven’t been able to detect any alterations in thought being caused by the implants that run your mechanical arm, they appear to be entirely feedback based, but the option to replace them is on the table.”

Bucky had never put much thought into the way his arm worked. He never pictured there being tech inside his head. Thinking about it now, it was probably for the best that he didn’t know, or else he might have tried to dig it out during his early days of freedom from Hydra control.

“Mostly, we have to reverse brainwash you,” Dr. Khnel continued.

“And how’s that done?”

“We have the book with how it was done in the first place. A brutal process, I’m sorry you had to go through with that.”

“You know the words,” Buck realized, a dread creeping through his stomach.

“The only people with access to those particular pages are myself and King T’Challa. I promise you, you will not hear them until you are cured.” Her voice took on an edge in order to get across her firm belief in this. Bucky wasn’t so sure.

“Is Steve coming?”

“I think it might be best for now if he stays away. I would like to distance you from anything that might be considered triggering, just for a little while. We’ll be taking things slowly.”

Like Steve Rogers could ever be considered triggering. But still, Bucky had decided to put his faith in these people when he let them freeze him. They were smarter than him, they must know what they were doing.

“How does the reverse brainwash work?”

“It will involve several therapy sessions where we talk about your feelings, as well as several sessions that will involve some minor hypnosis.”

“Hypnosis?” Bucky heard his heart rate go up again. He wished he could unplug the thing so that she wouldn’t know. “Sounds like you plan to do the same thing to me that they did.”

“It’s a very different process, and will involve zero painful stimuli like they used. I will also record all those sessions so that you can review them immediately afterward, so you can be sure nothing untoward is occurring. King T’Challa has also mentioned that he would sit in on the sessions to monitor them if you continue to feel reticent about it.”

“Would the recordings be deleted?”

“Yes. No video or audio records of any of my patients are ever kept more than a couple of days. I have a very good memory, and any notes I do take, are both encrypted, and written in a short hand of my own making.”

“How very secretive of you.”

She simply smiled at him.

The door opened and Bucky diverted his attention to watch a tall and neat Chinese man enter the room. He smiled warmly, a more genuine and natural look than the one on Dr. Khnel’s face.

“Mr. Barnes, so good to see you finally up,” he said as he walked over to stand at the foot of the bed. “I’m Dr. Yen.”

“Doc Khnel here says you fixed my arm?” Bucky gestured to his shoulder with his head.

“I assisted, yes. We moved you straight from your cryo sleep into an anaesthetic sleep so that we could operate. I’d like to perform some motor function tests with you if you feel up for it.” His eyes kept sliding from Bucky’s face to the monitors above, and he tapped away at a tablet in his hands.

“Better than lying here.” Bucky wanted to get out of bed, to move, but he wasn’t going to risk it before knowing if he should.

“Wonderful. We’ll start with your legs and move up. I’m going to remove your blanket.”

So Bucky did as the doc asked, first wiggling his toes and then rolling his ankles. He bent his knees and lifted his legs up from the hip. Next, his right hand was tested, performing various movements with his fingers and wrist. After that came the elbow, and then the shoulder. He rolled his neck, lifting his head up off the pillow, and stretched his jaw. The doc checked his pupil reflex, and had Bucky’s eyes track a light back and forth. He even got an ear, nose, and throat exam.

“All very good,” Dr. Yen informed him.

During the tests, Dr. Khnel had excused herself from the room, but Bucky suspected she didn’t go far. He also suspected there was likely a guard posted outside his room. It’s what he would have done if he were them.

“Now to test the prosthetic, if you can to sit up.”

Bucky sat up right away, glad to be off his backside.

“You won’t have full movement just yet, not while the surrounding tissues are still healing.” Dr. Yen placed his hands on either side of the shoulder. He carefully guided it slightly forward, slightly back, and then lifted it a few degrees. “Don’t try to move it any farther than that, not for a couple of days. Once you’re fully healed, it should move the same as your real shoulder. How does it feel?”

“Strange,” was the first word Bucky could think of.

“Oh? In what way? Is it uncomfortable? Does it hurt?”

“There’s some pain, but no more than there was with the other arm.”

“Your other arm was full of infection,” Dr. Yen sighed. “They clearly cared nothing for your actual wellbeing. When you’ve healed, we’re hoping you’ll feel no pain at all.”

“It also…” Bucky wasn’t sure how to word this next part. “It _feels_ more. Do you understand? I can feel your hands, the heat from them.”

Dr. Yen smiled very widely at that. “That’s wonderful! Yes, your new shoulder and arm will have much more extensive sensory perceptions. We were worried the older feedback system that we had to connect to wouldn’t allow for it, but it seems to run fine. Please let us know if you ever experience something odd, like ghost sensations, changes in temperature that the rest of your body doesn’t register, patches of numbness, anything like that. We’ll need to perform extensive tests once the whole unit is ready.”

Bucky just stared at his shoulder. He reached over with his hand and slowly ran his fingers along the metal. He could _feel_ the light touch. It was amazing.

“The star is gone,” he noticed.

“Yes, we weren’t sure if you wanted to keep that. Our prosthetist has a method for ‘tattooing’ metal if you would like it added later. Or even another design if you want.”

“I’ll think about it.” _Did_ Bucky want the star? It was very communist, but then it was also a part of him. Just seeing the new shoulder would take some getting used to. While the major plates were the same reflective silver shade, he saw tiny black panels in spots, mostly under the arm, but also a band along the top. Thinking it through, he figured they were the major fold points. What would the whole arm look like?

“So any other problems? Anything hurt, or not feel right? Any nausea?”

“I’m hungry,” Bucky told the doc.

“Great, an appetite is a good sign. I’ll put together a tray for you. It might be me who brings it, or the one the nurses. You’ll have two nurses, one during the day and one at night. If you need anything, you just push that button beside you there, and which ever one is on duty will come right away.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be checking on you at least once a day, and if you ever want to talk or ask questions, just have a nurse call me.”

“I think I’ll be fine.”

“You never know,” Dr. Yen shrugged. “You are the first person we know of to go straight from cryo to surgery.”

“Actually, I do have a question: can I get out of bed?”

“Yes, but I’d like you to rest as much as possible. The bathroom is just over there, but other than that, I think Dr. Khnel would like you to stay in your room for now. Sorry.”

Bucky swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for the IV in the back of his hand.

“Let me remove that,” Dr. Yen insisted, hurrying over to his side.

Buck let him slide the needle out, put a bandage on it, and then remove the electrodes from his chest that had been monitoring his heart and breathing. Finally the beeping stopped, and only Bucky would know how fast his heart was actually pumping. Once freed, he got up and stretched. There was a slight rush of dizziness, but it quickly passed.

“There’s clothes in the dresser,” Dr. Yen explained. “It should all fit. If any of it doesn’t-”

“I know, just let you know,” Bucky finished for him.

“Just remember to take it easy. I’ll go get that food for you now. Dr. Khnel should return in a few hours. I believe she wants to give you some tests to assess your baseline.”

“Looking forward to it.” Bucky filled his voice with sarcasm.

Dr. Yen didn’t seem to mind, and quietly left. Bucky was alone for the first time since the UN had grabbed him, since Steve had shown up at his place. He made his way to the window, his legs feeling stiffer and weaker than he liked, but stronger than when Hydra would first wake him. He leaned on the glass, resting his forehead against it. Outside was a fog-laden jungle with a few waterfalls off in the distance. There was also a rather intimidating stone panther creeping out of the mists to the right. With a view like that, Bucky was sure to remember whose home he was staying in. He wondered when T’Challa would ask him to repay the favour he was doing, for surely it was coming.

After taking in the view, Bucky made his way to the bathroom to empty his full bladder. It wasn’t a grand space, but it was nicer than the last place he had been living. There was a large shower stall, a sink within a wide counter, and a simple but clean toilet. Dark green towels that matched the chair in the bedroom hung on the towel bar, while everything else was white or grey. A small window at head height overlooked the same patch of jungle as the window in the bedroom did. When Bucky reached the toilet, he found he had to sit to relieve himself, his legs already tired. It was disconcerting, but then he had just had a pretty major operation. While he sat, he poked at the bandages around his shoulder, wondering how long it would be until they came off and he could look at the whole thing.

After flushing, Bucky took the time to study himself in the mirror. Ignoring the arm, he looked the same as before he had been frozen. He had forgotten to ask either Yen or Khnel how long he had been under for. Had it been years or only months? Had another decade slipped by, unobserved by him? What other major world events was he ignorant of? For all he knew, there were flourishing colonies on Mars, and California had sunk into the sea.

Moving back into the bedroom, Bucky decided to look at the clothes he had been given. Although he had woken up wearing the pants in which he had gone to sleep, he was currently without a shirt. Opening each drawer, he poked around all the soft garments; there was no armour here, and a surprising number of bright colours. He picked out a black T-shirt and pulled it on, taking care around his bandaged shoulder. He had also woken up barefoot, so he donned some socks and stuck his feet into the cheap slip-ons they had supplied. Maybe he could ask for boots later.

Bucky found he was tired after all that. Anaesthetic and cryo freezing were nothing like real sleep. He didn’t want to get back into bed, though. He didn’t like the thing, it was too hospitaly. Instead, he made his way to the overstuffed chair and eased himself down into it. It was much better.

Within a few minutes, his door was opened and a young woman stepped inside carrying a tray. She looked to the bed first, but then turned to find Bucky when she saw he wasn’t there. Upon spotting him, she smiled.

“Hello, I’m your day nurse, Tilly.” She carrying the tray over to where Bucky sat, unfolding little legs from the bottom of it. “Dr. Yen asked me to bring you this.”

“Thanks.” Bucky let her place the tray over his lap and remove the lid that kept the food warm. He had been expecting hospital food, but this was certainly not that. It was an actual meal, consisting of a chicken breast, some veggies, and a small salad on the side. He even got metal utensils whereas he had been expecting plastic, along with a chilled glass of water that had ice cubes floating around in it.

“Do you need any help cutting the chicken?” Tilly asked.

“I can manage.” It would be difficult to do one handed, but Bucky didn’t want anyone cutting his food for him as though he were child.

“All right. If you need anything else let me know.”

Bucky was getting really tired of hearing that. He waited until Tilly left before he started eating. It was surprisingly challenging to do with one hand. Even the veggies caused him problems, for they weren’t easy to scoop up on either the fork or the spoon without having something to press them against. When it came time to eat the chicken, he found the best method was to stab the piece he wanted with the fork, hold the fork steady with his mouth, and then use the knife to cut off the chunk. It involved a lot of back forth. He wondered when his new arm would be ready.

He had some time after he finished eating and before Dr. Khnel came back. Carefully balancing the tray, he placed it on the table and started walking laps around the room. Bucky was determined to be out of commission for as short a time as possible. While he paced, he studied the corners of the room, searching for a monitoring device of some kind. There were no cameras or microphones that he could see, not even in the hospital equipment when he started poking around it. That’s when Dr. Khnel returned, as he was investigating the heart monitor unit.

“It’s good to see you’re already up,” she commented.

“Uh huh.” Bucky made his way back to the comfortable chair and sat down.

She lifted the chair she had sat in earlier and brought it over, setting it down a reasonable distance away. When she sat, it was very proper. Her back was exceptionally straight, and she daintily crossed her ankles. In one hand she held a tablet, which she tapped at with the other. She had also brought a small bag with her that she rested on the floor beside her chair. It looked like a purse, but Bucky wondered; she hadn’t had it with her when he first woke up.

“I’m going to ask you some basic questions, Bucky. They should be straightforward.”

“Go ahead.”

They really were simple questions. She asked him things like his date of birth and his full legal name. He was told to spell certain words, or solve easy math problems. He had to read the glowing numbers of a clock set on the dresser, and identify colours and images that Khnel showed him on the tablet. Bucky was then handed the tablet in order to complete some tasks, such as matching shapes together, and tracing a pattern with his finger.

“Very good,” Khnel smiled as she took the tablet back. “You currently have no cognitive issues.”

“Currently?”

“Changes in emotional state can change the way certain people perceive things.”

“Uh huh. Can I ask you a question?”

“Please, feel free.”

“How long was I frozen for this time?”

“A little over three years. Three years, one month, and two days to be specific.”

“Anything important happen while I was out?”

“Depends on what you think is important.”

Bucky let a small huff of a laugh out of him. She was already doing the analysis thing. He wanted to get better but he hadn’t signed up for talking to a therapist.

“Dr. Yen mentioned you’re going to be limiting my contact with people?”

“Only while we work to remove the brainwashing. Your mind may end up in a fragile state, and we don’t want to risk doing you more harm. I need to control your environment for a little while, but afterward, once I’ve cleared you, you’ll be allowed to move about the facility.”

“Sounds boring.”

“That’s why I brought you some things with which to occupy your time between sessions.”

Dr. Khnel stood up, picking up the large purse in the process. She carried it over to the table and removed one item at a time. Bucky got up from his chair so that he could see them more clearly.

From the bag, Khnel withdrew a small bar that could be extended and used as a chin-up bar, a rubber ball, something proclaiming to be an adult colouring book, a box of pencil crayons, a blank notebook, some pens, a crossword book, a Sudoku book, a small digital camera, and a deck of playing cards. Bucky could see the purpose of all of these, but was surprised when Khnel withdrew both a semi-automatic pistol and a gun cleaning kit out of her bag.

“A gun?” he asked.

“It’s not loaded,” she informed him. “You’re a soldier with extensive weapons training, I figured it might bring you some comfort. Better than a teddy bear would, anyway.”

“Was that a joke?” the beginnings of a smile attempted to tug at Bucky’s mouth.

“I can make a joke if I want to,” Khnel said, all serious, which in itself seemed to be another joke.

“I’d like to make a request.”

“If it’s for bullets, the answer is no.”

“No bullets makes sense, no, what I want to request is to see King T’Challa.”

“You haven’t seen a single familiar face and want to confirm you are where you think you are.” Khnel was quick, figuring out exactly what he had been thinking.

“Oh, I know where I am, there’s kind of a big statue out there that gives it away. I want to make sure the right people are still in charge.”

“I’ll send word to His Majesty. I’m sure he’d like to see how you are now that you’re awake.” Khnel slipped her tablet into her now empty bag and slung it over her shoulder. “We’ll begin in earnest tomorrow. Goodnight, Bucky.”

“Goodnight, Dr. Khnel.”

When the door opened, Buck peered through the gap. He didn’t see anyone posted outside, but only got a glance of the hallway. When the door shut, he moved toward a vent high up on the wall to its left, between it and the bathroom. Moving the large chair, he climbed up on top of it so that he could peer through the grating. There was nothing in there, it was just an airflow vent that connected through to the hallway outside. He couldn’t see much through it, just the opposing wall and part of a ceiling. Hopping off the chair, Bucky then investigated the ventilation above the bed. It was the inflow, and had nothing beyond it but metal ductwork. There was nothing in there to suggest he was being monitored. Maybe he wasn’t.

Feeling weary again, Bucky returned to the chair, picking up the small, rubber ball along the way. While he sat, he flexed his hand, rhythmically squeezing the ball. He wondered when he would be allowed to contact Steve. As sad as it was, Rogers was his only real touchstone. He had tried to go it alone for a couple of years, but he had to admit that it wasn’t working. He felt lost, drifting. Nothing was the same as it had been before. Before he fell off that train. Before he had been a POW. Before the war. Sure, there was still fighting, still wars going on, but even they were different. They were fought differently. Although Bucky supposed that World War II, his war, had been fought differently than his father’s war had been.

Bucky had once looked up his family, to see if he still had any. His parents were obviously dead, but he had hoped that maybe one of his younger siblings had survived. They hadn’t. One of his brothers had been killed during a battle in the Pacific theatre, while the other seemed to have drank himself to death a few years later, as best as Bucky could find out. His sister, on the other hand, had led a relatively long and seemingly normal life. She got married, had a crop of kids, and eventually passed away at the age of seventy-two from lung cancer, most likely brought on from smoking. He had nieces and nephews who still lived, one even named after him, and they all had their own families, their own lives. Buck never considered contacting any of them, why would he? He didn’t know any of them, and they didn’t know him. His sister had probably told them stories about Bucky being a great war hero, if she told them stories like that at all. What would they _really_ know about him? Nothing. He was a figure in a story.

When some of his energy came back, Bucky started throwing the rubber ball across the room, bouncing it off the window and floor so that it came back to him. His reflexes and hand-eye co-ordination seemed to be intact. After a while of that, he got up and moved to the table with the other objects. He was first drawn to the pistol. It looked like some sort of Glock, but there were small details that were unlike any he knew about. Maybe a new version had been issued, or the Wakadans had made their own. He picked it up, testing the weight of it in his hand. He discharged the magazine. Based on the size and inner mechanics, he estimated it would hold seventeen rounds. Getting the magazine back into the gun was not as easy as getting it out had been. He kept forgetting that his other arm was gone, and it took him a second or two to think of a way to do things one handed. With the magazine back in, he glanced at the gun cleaning kit. Bucky decided he wasn’t about to tackle that process one handed. Besides, the gun looked and smelled brand new. Maybe tomorrow he’d take it apart to study its insides. He slid the gun into the wide side pocket of his cargo pants.

It was while he was flipping through the colouring book, his eyes following the lines of the intricate patterns and designs, when T’Challa entered his room. It had gotten late, the sun low on the horizon and making the jungle appear as though it were burning. The king wore a suit, a nice one, but not something Buck pictured royalty in. Of course, when he thought of kings and queens, he thought of overblown dresses and uniforms. King T’Challa already had enough interesting attire when it came to his black pajamas.

“Your Majesty,” Bucky slowly stood.

“Sergeant Barnes,” the king of Wakada nodded in greeting.

“I’m not sure I’m a Sergeant anymore.”

“You were never technically discharged from the American military.”

“No, I just died.”

“The official reports list you as missing in action.”

“Yeah, well, pretty sure you lose your rank when you become a wanted criminal.”

“And yet I will continued to refer to our mutual friend as Captain Rogers.”

Bucky grinned, which drew a similar look to T’Challa’s face.

“So they’re still after him, huh?”

“He never did sign the accords.”

“Stevie, a criminal. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“I understand Dr. Khnel gave you an idea of what would be involved in removing your conditioned programming.” T’Challa gestured for Bucky to sit back down, walking over to the table in order to sit across from him. He had no reaction to the strange assortment of objects littering the table.

“Yeah, hypnosis.”

“I understand why this would make you reticent.”

“Do you though? Do you really understand?”

T’Challa studied his face. “No, I suppose I don’t. It’s the best option available to us, however. Would you prefer I sit in on the sessions? It would make the process take longer, I’m afraid, as it’ll then have to work around my schedule.”

“No, you got a more important job than babysitting me. Can you tell me anything about what’s been happening out there? And I don’t mean the sports scores.”

T’Challa filled him on some attacks perpetrated by various terrorist organizations. There had been no aliens recently, nor AI bent on destroying humanity. New York had had another run in with some mutated thing, but the destruction had been minimal and the situation had been handled by Spider-Man.

“The kid at the airport?” Bucky still couldn’t get over how young the guy was. “The one who talked too much?”

“He’s quite capable of handling himself it seems.”

“Yeah, I learned that when he pinned both Sam and I to the floor.” For Bucky that hadn’t been all that long ago. When he had heard the kid’s voice, he had found himself thinking about Steve. Not Captain America, but Steve before the serum, a little runt picking fights with guys way bigger than himself. If he was like Steve in other ways, then maybe he’d be all right running around with those super powers of his.

“If there’s nothing else, I really should be returning to my duties.” T’Challa rose from his seat, clearly assuming there wouldn’t be anything more.

“No. Just… check in once in a while, okay? You may have tried to kill me, but at least I know who you are.”

T’Challa laughed. “I will make sure to find time. I think it would be both interesting and enlightening to hear your opinions on certain subjects.”

“Yeah?”

“You come from a time before a lot of this. I’m sure there are things you see differently.”

“Maybe.”

“Goodnight, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Goodnight, Your Highness.”

Bucky watched the sun finish setting, the leaves thrashing like flames, and then received his next visitor. It was his night nurse, a man who introduced himself as M’saka in a heavily accented voice. He had brought Bucky his dinner, and removed the dishes from earlier as well as the medical equipment, clearly not interested in saying more than was necessary. Buck was glad he didn’t have to hear another person tell him that he could ask for anything, as though he were a fragile, wounded sparrow. Even with only one arm, he could still kill most people.

In the darkness, Bucky found himself restless. He had turned out the lights and attempted to sleep, but no sleep was forthcoming. He lay in the gloom, his mind agitated. Eventually he gave up, slid out of bed, and started to pace. He tried to install the chin-up bar himself in the frame of the bathroom door, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t hold up one end and extend the other with enough force to lock it in place. He considered attempting to use his feet, to try installing it while in a handstand, but decided against the idea; he had never had very dextrous toes. Picking up the ball again, he rolled it around in his hand while he went back to pacing. It kept him from poking at his bandages.

It was late. The numbers of the digital clock burned green. Looking through the ventilation that connected to the hallway, Bucky could see that the lights out there had been dimmed. Nothing moved or made a sound. He paced some more.

It was nearly one in the morning when he heard something outside his room. Soft footsteps, followed by the shifting of fabric, as though someone were sitting. The fabric sounded like the same material that covered the overstuffed chair in his room. He moved over to where it was still placed under the vent and listened. Was someone sitting out there? The night nurse, or maybe a guard?

And then a woman’s voice. Hesitant at first. Quiet. Barely audible. A woman was sitting out there, so it definitely wasn’t the night nurse. She cleared her throat, then started talking louder. No, not talking. Was she… reading? Bucky sat down on the chair and listened, curious. She was definitely telling a narrative in a third person. She was reading a book, out loud, outside his room. Did she know that he was in there? That he could hear her?

Two options presented themselves to Bucky. Either she didn’t know, and would be embarrassed if Bucky made it known that he was listening, or she did know. And if she did know, then what? Had she been sent by Dr. Khnel? Was this a part of his therapy? He chose to stay quiet and make no indication that he heard her.

Her voice had no accent that Buck could place. She wasn’t a native Wakandan, but then Dr. Yen clearly wasn’t either. He guessed she was American, or maybe Canadian. Somewhere from those areas that sounded the same to his ear. There was nothing special about it. But he sat and listened to her read, noting the confidence she gained once she got going. The story started off interesting enough, definitely a fiction novel of some type. A few times she stumbled over a word, forced to reread it. It was very… human.

Bucky slumped in his chair, relaxing his body. He let his mind focus on her voice, on listening to the story she was reading, that she was telling.

An hour slipped by, and Bucky had learned the novel was some sort of action-adventure. But the woman stopped reading, probably at a chapter break. He wanted to say something, to urge her to continue. The story was interesting. Instead, he listened to her get up and walk away. He wondered if he would ever get to hear what happened next.

Rising from his own chair, he crossed the room and climbed into bed. Thinking about where the plot might go, he found himself able to fall asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please point out any editing errors.

Kit was twiddling her pencil while she looked over the schematics again. She wanted the arm to be right, to be perfect. She flipped through the layers of pages again and again, making sure everything was correct, double checking on her tablet. Of course, making sure everything was right on paper, was very different from making sure everything was right with the actual construction. The plans were good. She knew they were good. She put in the request for the required materials.

Looking up from her work, she realized how late it was. Again. But she wasn’t tired. She was buzzing. She always got like this right before the construction of a big project began. She needed something to calm her mind.

Digging through one of her cupboards, she located a book she had taken out of the library a while ago. She had meant to read it, but then had finally gotten approval to build Barnes’ arm and had never gotten around to starting the damn thing.

Yen had updated Kit on Barnes’ condition. He was apparently doing well, was quite alert, and claimed that there was no discomfort with the shoulder mount. The bandages could probably be taken off tomorrow.

Kit studied the cover of her book, and then glanced outside into the common area. The lights out there were dim and no one was moving about.

 _Don’t,_ part of her mind warned. The other part didn’t listen.

Not bothering to put her boots on, Kit stepped barefoot out of her room. She just wanted to see exactly how far away his room was from hers, that was all. That’s what she told herself. Yen had even reminded her what room he was in, so what could be the harm? It wasn’t a secret where he was staying. She would just walk by. The exercise would do her good.

Barnes’ room was located at a ninety degree of a hallway. It was almost a T-juncture, but instead of another hallway, it dead-ended in a little nook. There were four chairs with a small coffee table in the middle; a meeting area for those who lived down here. Kit saw no one in either hallway and then found herself sitting in one of the chairs before she could think better of it.

 _What you doing? You’re so creepy. Why are you sitting outside his room?_ But of course she was fairly certain she knew why.

Kit looked at the book in her hands, having forgotten that she had been carrying it. She could read here, the chair was comfortable enough. She’d read and then go back to her room and get some sleep.

She started reading out loud, it was weird. Barnes was probably asleep in there. But Kit wanted to talk to him, just once. She didn’t know what to say, and so apparently she was going to read. And he would be asleep and wouldn’t hear her anyway. It was fine.

It turned out that Kit enjoyed reading aloud. It reminded her of her high school English classes, when different students were picked to read certain roles in various Shakespeare plays they studied. Kit had found she understood the language better when she read out the parts and had wished she could do all of them. This book was better though, it had a narrative she could easily understand. The hero was a single dad who used to work for the CIA until an explosion had killed his wife and second kid. The villain was so far shaping up to be a computer, and Kit found herself wondering if the book had been written before or after the incident in Sokovia.

She read several chapters, totally forgetting where she was. Once she began to feel tired, however, she stopped and remembered. There was only a wall between her and Barnes, and while she assumed he was asleep, it was possible he wasn’t. If he wasn’t and he could hear her, he didn’t say anything about it. Kit got up and walked away, embarrassed with herself, and telling herself not to be so foolish again. Of course, she didn’t always listen to herself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feel free to point out editing errors.

Bucky rolled a pencil crayon back and forth under his hand along the table. Across from him, sat Dr. Khnel. This was to be their first session, but Buck had no idea what to say. What was he to talk about? In the afternoon he would start the hypnotherapy, but this morning was to be discussion. Khnel offered no prompts, not asking him to look at imagery and tell her what he saw, or doing any sort of word association stuff. They had been sitting in silence now for five minutes. Bucky wondered what would happen if he said nothing the entire time. He suspected that Khnel would let him and just observe his actions.

“I heard someone in the hall last night,” Bucky finally said. He had agreed to this after all. Maybe not this specifically, but he had agreed to accepting help.

“A number of people who work in this facility also live here in rooms not aren’t too dissimilar from this one. Sometimes they work late, or can’t sleep.”

“They were talking.”

“Most likely discussing a project I imagine, or dictating notes. If it bothers you, I can put special noise restrictions on the hallway, or find you a room in a quieter location.”

“No, it’s fine.” It seemed she didn’t know about his mysterious reader last night. Or she was feigning ignorance, but then why would she do that? What would be the point? Maybe it _was_ unrelated to his being here. But then… “Is there a guard outside my room?”

“No. Do you think there should be?”

So it was possible other people in this building had no idea he was in there. “I would have put one out there.”

“Because you feel you are in danger, or because you feel you are a danger to others?”

“Because you apparently have some really high tech stuff in this place and I’m someone you don’t know.”

“Captain Rogers vouched for you, and King T’Challa seems to trust you to some degree. Are you saying we shouldn’t take them at their word?”

Bucky picked up the pencil crayon and twirled it between his fingers. “So when is my arm going to be ready?”

“A shipment of supplies was sent to the prosthetist this morning so I assume the actual construction will have begun. It could take a week.”

A week with only one arm. “Could you help me set this up then?” Bucky swapped the pencil crayon with the chin up bar and held it forth.

“Certainly.”

Buck simply told her how high he wanted it in the doorway, and Khnel placed it for him. He noticed she had more strength to her than he first thought, while watching her jam it in place. Both of them returned to their seats and the silence continued.

“Will you be putting me on any drugs?” Bucky wondered.

“Not if it can be avoided, but yes, I will prescribe medication if I think you need any.”

Talking to this woman felt to Bucky like he was throwing himself at a wall. He didn’t know what to say to her. Why wasn’t she helping? Giving him prompts or something? Maybe that was the point, to see where he would go. Were all the sessions going to be like this? He hoped not. Instead of going back to rolling the pencil, he now rolled the rubber ball under his palm.

“Is the weather always like that?” Bucky nodded his head toward the window, where the jungle was still shrouded in mist and thin clouds crept across the sky.

“Much of the time, yes. Sometimes there’s rain or even thunderstorms, but often it’s a sort of filtered sunlight.”

“Not much sun bathing gets done here then I take it.”

“A recreation centre on the highest level, on the cliff top, becomes quite popular when we do get the occasional day of full sun.”

And so the session continued in that manner, with Bucky asking benign questions between long periods of silence. When finally Dr. Khnel left, Nurse Tilly brought in lunch. It was some sort of elaborate salad, with several cut up fruits arranged around it. No meat, but that was fine. Bucky didn’t find himself particularly hungry anyway, and he liked that he could just pick at this with a fork. Cutting up his eggs that morning had been tedious, but he still refused to ask either nurse to do it for him.

Dr. Yen came back in the afternoon. By then, Bucky had actually started colouring in one of the pages of the colouring book, just slowly and idly filling in the shapes, paying no attention to the colours he was actually using.

“How about we take those bandages off today?” Yen smiled brightly.

“I hear my arm is actually being built right now?” Bucky pulled his chair back and his shirt off so that Dr. Yen could easily get to his shoulder.

“It is. Current estimates have it being completed in a week.”

“Yeah, Dr. Khnel told me.”

“What do you think of her so far?” Yen didn’t sound like he was prying, more like he was just generally curious and was making conversation.

“I don’t know.” Bucky shrugged his good shoulder. “We’re still evaluating each other I guess.”

“She can come across as cold but don’t let that fool you. She cares very deeply about all her patients.”

“Yeah?”

“She does. I know, because I used to be one of them a few years back.”

“And she fixed you?”

“I don’t think fixed is the right word, but she taught me how to cope. All right, there we go. Let’s take a look.” Yen had finished removing the bandages, revealing the extent of Bucky’s shoulder.

Buck turned his head to look at it. The flesh around the edges was still red and raw, but already it hurt less than his old arm had. He thought that losing the pain all together was going to be both strange and wonderful. The pattern of the metal was different, it appeared to meld into his flesh more than the old one had. Buck ran his fingers from his skin to the metal. There was barely a difference in his ability to feel his fingertips.

“Here, I have some mirrors if you want to see the back.” Yen took out a small hand mirror for Bucky to hold, and held the other one behind him so that Buck could use the reflections to see his own back.

“What’s it made out of?”

“The outer shell is vibranium.”

“Like Steve’s shield?”

“Captain America’s shield? Yes.”

“There’s enough for that?”

“Wakada has a fairly large reserve, although no one but the king knows its exact size. He signed off on its use, figuring you might have a need for it. I heard he said something about not wanting to ever have to build you another. The inner framework uses less rare metals, however, so while it won’t be as heavy as your old arm, it still won’t weigh the same as a flesh and blood arm. Now, can we run through those movement tests we did yesterday?”

Bucky didn’t say anything about it, but he read something into the fact that T’Challa was letting his arm be built out of vibranium. The king suspected he’d be getting into fights. The rough kind.

He went through Yen’s movement tests, which covered the same range of motion as the day before.

“You’re healing quite rapidly, this is excellent. Do you feel all right? Any nausea?”

“None.”

“I can’t see any signs of rejection, which is very good. We were worried about replacing the metal that fused to your bones, and certain fibres that connect to the muscle tissue, but so far everything looks great. I’m thinking that either tomorrow, or perhaps the day after that, you’ll be able to move your shoulder normally.”

“Thanks, doc.” Bucky was learning more about his cybernetic arm in the last two days than he had learned in all the years that the old one had been attached to him. It was useful knowledge, but at the same time, he also wished he hadn’t learned some of it. Fused to his bones? The arm was more attached to him than he had originally thought.

Yen took a blood sample, and then checked Bucky’s blood pressure and heart rate before leaving. Buck had only just put his shirt back on and returned to colouring, when Khnel returned. Her large purse was back, and she held a tripod.

“Are you ready for your first hypnosis session?” she asked.

Bucky clenched his jaw. No, he wasn’t ready. But then, he thought he never would be. “Let’s get it over with.”

Khnel had him lie on the bed. Uncertain about how the first session would go, she wanted him to be in as relaxed a position as possible.

“Is there a chance I might hurt you?” Bucky wondered, staring up at the ceiling while she set up the camera.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Nothing should lead you to a violet state of mind. I also have a high powered sedative I can give you, should anything overly alarming come up.”

“Is that sedative packed into a tranq gun?”

“Yes.” Khnel took it out of her purse and showed it to him.

“Good.”

***

When Bucky came out of it, he was shaking, covered in a cold sweat, and afraid. He felt like a little boy awakening from a nightmare he couldn’t remember.

“Bucky? Bucky, are you with me?” Dr. Khnel was speaking softly at his side.

Bucky turned his face to her, doing nothing to hide the raw, naked terror he could feel on his features. He was crying.

“It’s all right, Bucky. You’re safe. You’re completely safe.”

“What did you do to me?”

“Would you like to watch the video?”

Bucky violently shook his head back and forth. He crawled out of bed, away from Khnel. He went straight to the window, where he collapsed against it, curling tight into the corner where it met the wall.

“I know things seem horrible at the moment, but trust me, we made excellent progress today.”

Bucky didn’t respond, just shook. He had wrapped his arm around his knees and pressed his forehead to the glass, staring out at the jungle beyond.

“I’ll leave the camera here in case you want to watch it.” Khnel persisted in remaining for another two minutes, in case Bucky wanted to say something. When he didn’t, she left.

He had no memory of what trauma Khnel had made him go through, but the after effects were clear and lingering. Once alone, there was nothing to stop the sob from pulling its way up and out of him. He had never felt so… _weak_ before. Not since he was little. Not as little as Stevie had been, never that small, but still smaller than the older boys. Buck was an absolute mess, so he focused on those old memories, the ones from before he had any sort of a growth spurt. Stevie and him had naturally drawn together, living in the same neighbourhood. Buck couldn’t remember their first encounter, but the way Steve’s mom told it, Steve had been being bullied by some older kids who wanted his lunch money. She had seen the whole thing from her bedroom window, and was about to go down to try to do something, when Bucky got there first. Every boy walked away from that fight with bruises, but both Buck and Steve had walked away with a friendship as well. A friendship that would last longer than it had any right to.

Thinking about those times, Bucky got his crying and shaking under control, but he remained curled against the window.

A knock came at the door.

“What?” Bucky barked, the sound hoarse and harsh.

“It’s Tilly. I brought your dinner.”

Bucky crawled over to the bed where he could hide on the far side of it. “Just leave it on the table and go.”

Tilly did as he asked, saying nothing further. Perhaps she had been warned by Dr. Khnel not to. Bucky listened to her exchange the meal trays and exit the room. Once he was sure that she wasn’t returning, he crawled back to the window, ignoring the food she had brought. He wasn’t hungry in the slightest. Instead, he watched the jungle leaves. The panther stature was fairly visible at the moment, snarling at Bucky. He stared back into its black, stone eyes. Silently, he challenged the statue, trying to build a wall of anger between himself and the fear.

Bucky didn’t get up until darkness had fallen. He washed his face in the bathroom sink, and finally found that he was hungry. The food was cold, but good and easy to eat one handed. The lights hadn’t been turned on before the sun sank, and he didn’t bother with them now. There was a bright moon outside, casting the mists in a silver glow, enough to see by. He was definitely not getting in that bed tonight.

Grabbing the blanket off the bed, Buck dragged it over to the overstuffed chair. Something washed over him, some sickening, nameless dread. Bucky had to squeeze his eyes shut, locking his muscles to keep them from giving out on him. He took a deep breath and it passed.

And then he heard her voice. The reader was outside again, continuing with the next chapter of the story. Buck eased himself down onto the chair, pulling the blanket up over him. He listened to her voice, and pictured the words in his head. He went somewhere else for a while.

When she next finished, Bucky’s nerves weren’t so frayed. After she left, he pulled a second chair over, one he could prop his feet up on, and went to sleep beneath the outflow vent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so if you've reached the end of chapter 4, I feel you have to like my writing at least a little bit right? Well if you want to check out my none fan fiction and support me in the process, please consider checking out what I have published. The Instinct series is about a zombie apocalypse while Merciless is a thriller.  
> [Click here to check me out](https://www.amazon.com/Kristal-Stittle/e/B006NL1X4W)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited this in a rush and while sick, so hopefully it's not bad.

Kit’s welding goggles were basically black in order to let her see through the light cast off by the torch. She was building the framework for Barnes’ arm, and needed it to precisely match her schematics. The best way to build a mechanical arm was to base it on a real arm—his arm—which meant subtle bends and size changes along the long ‘bones’. Kit twisted off the flame and pulled her goggles up to peer at the red hot metal as she carefully cooled it with applications of ice water. Some of the ice water she drank. Her room was a sweat shack right now.

Gone were Kit’s usual long sleeved shirts and cargo pants, replaced by a thin tank top and airy basketball shorts. On her feet, her boots dangled, loose and sock free. It was a dangerous way to work. One slip up, or one errant spark, and she could be badly burned. She did it anyway. To wear more risked heat stroke. Besides, she didn’t need the torch much, most of the metal had already been shaped to spec, there were just a few adjustments she had to do by hand.

All along the length of her desk, metal was scattered about. With a sharp eye, one could see the rough layout of the arm based on the placement of the outer panels. Little heaps of wires, screws, and bolts peppered and threaded through the piles, awaiting assembly.

Kit leaned back in her chair and pulled a Popsicle out of the little freezer she kept under her desk.

“Got one of those for me?” Yen asked, popping in. “Christ, it’s hot in here.”

“You’re telling me.” Kit grabbed a second Popsicle and tossed it over to him.

Carefully peeling the wrapper so that he could use it to protect his hand from anything that melted, Yen walked over to investigate Kit’s work. He started at the end farthest from her and made his way down.

“He asks about the arm you know. About when it’ll be ready.”

“I’ve made pretty good progress so far.”

“I can see that. It was a good idea to start while he was still in cryo.”

“I happen to know a thing or two about literally needing a hand.” While having metal prosthetic hands came with downsides, there was a definite upside when it came to working with similar materials. Her work gloves hadn’t been freed from the cupboard in a long time.

“You really should be wearing protective gear.”

Kit had been waiting for the comment since the moment Yen had walked in. “Don’t worry, I’m done playing with fire. The big stuff anyway, I’ll still need to use the soldering torch.”

“Why didn’t you do this in a proper workshop? You know, the one we have set up for it, where you can wear the right gear without slow cooking yourself?”

“No Popsicles there.”

Yen rolled his eyes, knowing he wasn’t going to win this. Kit could be really stubborn when she set her mind to it.

“The shoulder still working?”

“Yes, and he’s healing even faster than we had predicted. Either tomorrow or the next day we’ll be able to perform a full range motion test.”

“That’s great.”

“I wonder if Khnel is making progress.”

Kit shrugged.

“She’s very good at her job, I’m sure she is,” Yen continued.

Kit said nothing. Every now and then, Yen tried to get Kit to talk to Dr. Khnel. She had learned the best way to deal with it was to stay quiet as if she hadn’t heard. Yen would get the message and stop pushing, at least for a couple of weeks. Kit thought she was fine. The nightmares still came, but she could usually go about two weeks without a single one. It was fine.

“You look like you’re not doing much right now,” Yen changed topics.

“I have to wait for this to cool before I can continue. Why? You need me for something?”

“Yes and no. Esser can’t make it to our weekly floor hockey match, so my team is down a player. Want to sub in?”

“I thought I wasn’t allowed to play anymore?” Kit’s wrist shot was a little too dangerous.

“That’s the best part, Esser is our goalie. You just gotta block the net.”

“Sounds good, although I’ve never played goalie, I might be shit. Let me put on some actual clothes and I’ll meet you in the gym.”

“Our team is shit anyway,” Yen shrugged. “I’ll see you there.”

As Yen headed out, still daintily eating his Popsicle, Kit shoved the rest of hers in her mouth and scraped it off the stick. Yen hadn’t noticed that the novel she was reading was being kept on her drafting table beside the door as opposed to on her headboard.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> any edits?

Bucky went through the motions with Dr. Yen, testing the full range of his shoulder. It moved just like his real one, as the doc said it would. His mind was elsewhere though, dwelling on his next appointment of the day.

“If it hurts at all, don’t stress it,” Yen was advising him.

“It doesn’t hurt.” Which was great, amazing really, but it didn’t help his growing dread about the hypnosis session to come. Was it going to be like yesterday’s?

“Are you eating well?”

“I guess. I eat what I’m given.”

“I’d like to discuss something we can do with your arm, if you’re interested.”

“What’s that?”

Instead of answering, Yen took a chair and sat down facing him. He rolled up both his pant legs and scrunched down his socks to reveal his shins.

“What do you think of my legs?” Yen asked him.

“Uhh,” Bucky wasn’t sure where this was going. “They’re legs?”

Yen smiled. He untied the laces of his left shoe and slipped it off. He then removed the sock, and Bucky saw that his foot wasn’t real, it was a cybernetic prosthetic. Yen then pulled his pant leg higher and showed Bucky a band of metal around the leg just below the knee. At first, it looked like something painfully tight, but then Bucky realized it was a _part_ of the doctor’s leg.

“You’re not the only amputee here,” Yen explained. “I lost the leg a while ago in an accident. The same person currently building your arm also built my leg. But _this_ was made by specialists.” Yen pinched the base of his ankle and _rolled_ up part of the skin of his shin, revealing shiny metal that gleamed underneath.

“Fake skin,” Bucky observed, a touch grossed out.

“Yes.” Yen rolled it back down and begun to put his sock and shoe back on. “I could have had the same made for my foot, but things like toes are much more complicated and I didn’t want to have too much time wasted on me. Besides, it’s a rare instance when anyone sees me without my socks on. We could make the same for your arm if you want. The hand too. We’d match it to the skin on your other arm, although unfortunately, the fake skin doesn’t tan, so if you’re in the sun for a while, people might notice a difference.”

“I think I’ll stick with the bare metal for now, thanks.” The fake skin was too real for Bucky. Sure, he’d be able to blend into a crowd without having to wear sleeves and gloves, but that benefit didn’t outweigh the revulsion he had felt at seeing the skin rolled up like that. He was glad when Dr. Yen’s legs were out of sight again.

“Sure, it’s your decision. I just thought you might want to consider it.”

“So what kind of accident caused you to lose your leg?” Bucky asked.

“It’s not important.”

It was the first time Yen didn’t answer Bucky’s question.

“Is that why you were Dr. Khnel’s patient once?” Bucky put two and two together.

“It is.”

Bucky didn’t push it. Dr. Yen was always so happy and laid back, even when brushing off Buck’s question, he didn’t want to see what would happen if the man got angry or upset. He liked Yen.

Inevitably, the appointment with Dr. Yen ended. The kind man left, and was replaced by the hard woman less than twenty minutes later.

“Shall we begin again?” she asked, checking that the camera was still set up.

Bucky went through a week of hell. Every day, he saw Khnel in the morning, Yen in the afternoon, and then had hypno therapy with Khnel after that. And every day, his emotional walls were torn down. He was a wreck, and every day it was harder to pull himself back together. He cried, he screamed, he shouted. Bucky never broke anything, he never became violent, not physically, but there were days when he wasn’t above using words as weapons. He ended up verbally abusing everyone. Dr. Khnel, Dr. Yen, and both his nurses. They all took it in stride, seemingly unfazed.

He got ill. When Buck thought he was feeling better, feeling up to it, he ate, but than a wave of some horrific thing would crash down, and he’d find himself vomiting in the toilet. He was shaky, sweaty, and exhausted, but he rarely slept. When his eyes were closed, he saw awful things. Imaginary or dredged up experiences, he couldn’t always tell.

But every night, his mystery reader came to him. For an hour or two, he sat shivering beneath his blanket on his chair, listening to her voice and picturing the story she read. He never shouted at her, never even spoke to her. He went somewhere else. It was his only true escape. The notebook, colouring book, and Suduko book had all become half torn and scribbled over messes. He compulsively disassembled the pistol and reassembled it, becoming really efficient at doing it one handed.

It was as though he had become untethered from all control. No more Hydra, but no more Bucky either. He was in pieces, different personalities manifesting seconds apart. Cold and hard, angry and screaming, scared and lost, grieving and pained. Khnel kept saying they were making progress, but Bucky only felt worse. Still, he managed to keep trusting her. He kept lying down on that bed every day, letting her do whatever it was she did while he was under. It was as though every feeling he had missed while working as the Winter Soldier was now coming out of him, all at once. It was madness.

“I have a gift for you,” Dr. Yen said one day as he came in, pulling a small, wheeled cart behind him.

Bucky didn’t respond. He was sitting in the corner against the window, wrapped up in his blanket and watching the rain cause the jungle to shiver. He was having a calm moment, and such moments were precious to him now.

Yen rolled the cart into the middle of the room and stood to one side, patiently waiting for Bucky’s attention. Bucky knew he couldn’t avoid him forever. He finally dragged his eyes, red rimmed and hollowed out, away from the window and to the cart. Something gleamed on top of it, just slightly too high for Bucky to make it out. Slowly, painfully, he got to his feet, the blanket sliding down his body to puddle on the floor.

“Your arm is done,” Yen beamed, throwing his hands out toward it like some sort of game show host.

Bucky walked over to it. It matched his shoulder. The majority of the arm was semi-reflective metal, but the inside of the elbow and finger joints were tiny, layered, black bits, similar to scales. The palm and underside of the fingers were also black. Running his fingers along them, he felt that they were a sort of tough rubber to provide better grip, but he could feel the solid metal plates beneath it.

“Is it good? Do you want to put it on?”

“Do I have to be put under for that?” Bucky’s voice was hoarse from screaming at Khnel that morning. She took it as well as the walls did.

“No, and it should only take a minute.”

“Fine.” Bucky had kind of liked the idea of being put into a medically induced sleep, but if it wasn’t to be than it wasn’t to be. He sat down in the straight-backed chair that was currently closest to the arm.

“Hold your shoulder straight, as if holding your arms out.” Yen demonstrated.

Bucky did.

Dr. Yen rolled the cart over, and then shifted the arm along the top of it. It was heavy, probably too heavy for Yen to comfortably hold for more than a minute or two. Using a tiny, poking tool, Yen pressed a recessed button within the stump end of Bucky’s shoulder. He heard some mechanical parts move, and in the reflection from the window, Bucky could see little bits of metal poke out of his stump, while little hatches opened elsewhere. The hatches and prongs matched up with an opposing set on the end of the arm that lay on the cart. Yen very carefully pushed the arm into his shoulder.

Bucky felt a sharp stab and a pinch, making him draw in a quick breath between his teeth.

“Sorry, I should have warned you about that,” Yen hastily apologized.

Bucky didn’t listen to it though. He suddenly had an arm where none had been before. He could feel the cart that it rested on.

“Don’t move just yet, I need to make sure the locks have properly engaged,” Yen told him. With his poking tool, he prodded tiny gaps where the new arm met the new shoulder just above the bicep area. It was a strange sensation. “Okay, everything seems to have connected. You can try moving it now, but take it slow.”

Bucky first ran his hand along the cart, feeling the smooth metal beneath his rubberized fingertips. Tears sprang to his eyes. He was too tired to wipe them away or care that Yen saw. When he lifted the arm up, _his_ arm, the movement felt completely natural. He twisted it this way and that, bending the elbow, and flexing his fingers.

“There are some tests I’d like you to go through when you’re ready.”

Bucky nodded, unable to form words for the moment.

Yen had him do some motion tests, such as touching each finger to his thumb. He had Bucky close his eyes, then handed him various objects for him to identify.

“Ball. Gun. Pen. Needle. Stethoscope.”

Bucky then had to stand and was told to walk around the room for a bit, to see how it felt. Better than his last prosthetic, and certainly better than having nothing. There were various other tests too. Yen had Bucky move some furniture around, do some chin ups using only the metal arm, throw and catch the ball, and even write a bit. The writing was awful, but then Bucky had never been able to write well with his left hand, so that was fine.

Between tests, Bucky found himself touching everything. His shirt, his pants, his other arm. And he kept running his fingers, the ones made of flesh, along the surface of his new arm.

“Can it feel pain?” Bucky wondered.

“Not really. There are dampeners that will dull the impact of anything striking with a certain amount of force. You’ll feel it, but it shouldn’t hurt.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, I’m just the installer.”

“Thank you anyway. And thank the prosthetist for me.” It was strange that Bucky didn’t know the person who had allowed him to be physically whole.

“I will.”

When Khnel came that afternoon, she gave Bucky a break. There was going to be no hypnosis that day, giving him more time to adjust to the arm. Instead, she made him watch parts of the videos of previous sessions. Bucky had refused to touch the camera on his own, but now Khnel sat him down and played back sections she had transferred to her tablet. So much for deleting them right away, but then she had probably been assuming he would watch the videos on his own. She had gotten something wrong for once.

It was strange to see himself in times he had no memories of. He was a lot calmer in the videos that he had expected himself to be. He talked about things that had happened and things he had done. He was more honest in those videos than he was with himself while awake. Hearing how he truly felt about being a POW, about having killed innocent people as an assassin, even the conflicting emotions he felt about Steve since he had become Captain America. He watched himself explain events, in detail, of things that had happened which he wouldn’t even let himself think about.

He was still in pieces on the inside. His new arm couldn’t fix his fluctuating emotions, even if it did ease his frustrations with certain basic tasks. The next day, the hypnosis sessions continued, but Khnel started showing him highlights the following morning. Apparently it was time for him to confront these events while awake. Whether it was the new arm or his utter exhaustion that made Khnel start doing this, he had no idea. But he had been worn down. He talked more easily to Khnel about things, even if that talking turned into more screaming and crying. Day by day, he drained. Yen eventually ran out of medical tests to perform, but he kept coming by, kept the routine going. Most of his visits now were just the two of them talking about pointless stuff. Easy stuff. Yen told Bucky about movies and TV shows he should watch, and even brought in music from time to time. Bucky learned about how the doctor was a part of a facility wide floor hockey league, which seemed like an odd sport for the mostly Wakadan run place. But then, Bucky knew next to nothing about Wakada, maybe they loved hockey here.

“So Opoie went running from the room like his coat were on fire,” Yen was telling a story about something that had happened to his co-workers earlier.

And Bucky laughed. He actually laughed, a spontaneous sound that burst out of him. It surprised the hell out of Bucky. He had found things amusing, but he had been certain he couldn’t really laugh anymore, not like that. His surprise made him laugh more, and he knew he must look like a total loon, because the story didn’t warrant this much hilarity. But the joy Bucky felt about being able to laugh made it impossible to contain. He laughed until tears were squeezed out of his eyes.

Khnel was delighted to hear about it the next time she came in. She finally showed an honest reaction to something Bucky said. He was getting better.

A few days later, Khnel stopped the hypnosis sessions. She said that Bucky didn’t need them anymore. A few days after that, T’Challa accompanied her one afternoon.

“Your Majesty,” Bucky stood, his eyes darting back and forth between him and the head doc.

“Sergeant Barnes, I’m told you’ve made excellent progress.”

“I have.” It was a nice thing to admit.

“Provided the next few minutes go as planned, you’ll be allowed to leave your room to interact with other members of the facility. You’ll be getting your own food, and doing your own laundry from here on out.”

“Yeah? I thought you were about to say you were giving me the boot.”

“You’re not quite ready for that,” Khnel smiled one of her lightless smiles. “I just think it would be good for you to finally get out of here and move about. Get to know some more people.”

“So what’s the test?” Because Bucky knew there had to be a test.

“Please, sit back down,” T’Challa gestured to the chair he had vacated.

Slowly, warily, Bucky sat back down. Then T’Challa pulled the book out from behind his back. _The_ book. Red, with a black star on the cover. Bucky swallowed hard as his heart rate jumped. His hands formed tight fists against his thighs, as his spine hardened.

“Dr. Khnel believes you are cured of the conditioning you had received. The words in this book should no longer affect you.”

“But you’re here in case they do,” Bucky realized.

“In part yes, but also because I’m the only one allowed to be in possession of this.” Although he handed the book over to Khnel after opening it to a particular page.

“Are you ready?” Khnel asked.

No. “Yes.”

Khnel and T’Challa shared a nod, and then she turned to the book. Her Russian was perfect. “ _Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight car... Solider?”_

Bucky grinned. “Fuck you!” he cried, unaffected. While he had been flooded with terror as she spoke, he had remained in control the whole time.

Both T’Challa and Khnel were visibly relieved.

“You are free, my friend,” T’Challa said, stepping forward to shake Bucky’s hand.

“Well, we still have some things to work through,” Khnel added.

Bucky was laughing and crying from the flood of joy that overwhelmed him. He couldn’t even stand up when T’Challa shook his hand, his legs felt weak.

“This belongs to you now.” T’Challa took the red book from Khnel and placed it in Bucky’s hands. “You can do whatever you like with it.”

Bucky promptly ripped it in half. “Either of you got a lighter?”

“I’ll bring one to our next session if you like,” Khnel offered.

“Please do.”

“I am very happy for you, Sergeant Barnes, however I must again return to my duties.” T’Challa tipped his head in Bucky’s direction.

Bucky nodded back. “Thank you, Your Majesty. You’ve done far more than you’ve needed to.”

“I nearly killed a man who was innocent of the reasons I wished to kill him for, making rash judgements without all the facts, and nearly making a grave mistake. I am simply making up for that.”

“This is still above and beyond. Thank you.”

T’Challa politely excused himself.

Bucky ripped the book into quarters. It was satisfying.

“I’d like you to spend the rest of the afternoon in here for now, but tomorrow I’ll show you around the facility,” Khnel said.

“Sounds good to me.” Bucky shredded the book some more, piece by piece, turning it into tiny, useless bits. “Can I make a request?”

“What’s that?”

“I’d like to meet the prosthetist who made my arm.”

Khnel’s mouth turned into a thin line, and Bucky couldn’t fathom why. “I can arrange that.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No. It’s fine.”

“I want to thank them for this.” He lifted his cybernetic arm as if she had forgotten about it.

“Of course. I’ll make sure you meet.”

They talked about other things for a bit, nothing important for once, while Bucky continued his methodical destruction of the book, putting the little shredded bits on the table. He’d have shot the book had he a bullet for his gun.

That night, his reader returned, removing any last doubts Bucky had about her being possibly sent by Khnel. He was actually happy that night, and managed to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

“Kit.  Kit, wake up.”

            A hideous noise garbled its way out of Kit’s throat.

            “Kit, come on.  Wake up.”

            “I’m awake,” she mumbled, prying her eyes open.  Yen was looming over her.  Of course it was him, he was the only one she trusted with her door code.  “What is it?  Why do you need me?”  There was an absence of shrieking alarms, so it wasn’t like the facility was on fire or anything.

            “I don’t, Khnel just thought it would be better if _I_ woke you up.”

            “What does Khnel want?”  Kit hauled her body upright and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.  Even false eyes weren’t immune to sleep gunk.

            “Apparently Barnes wants to meet you.  She wants that meeting to happen to now.”

            “What?”  Kit blinked several times, assuming she had heard wrong.

            “Barnes wants to thank you in person for building his arm.”

            Kit stared at her friend with wide eyes for a moment, like an animal that’s found itself on the highway with a semi truck screaming toward it.  She then flew from her bed and hid in her bathroom.

            “He’s all better now,” Yen spoke through the door while she went through her morning routine at a much earlier hour and much more rushed pace than usual.  “You don’t have to worry about him suddenly going crazy or anything like that.”

            “I’m not worried about that,” Kit called back, her words coming out mumbled due to the toothbrush in her mouth.

            Her hair was a disastrous nest upon her head and there was no time to shower.  She tackled it with the brush, attempting to smooth it into something that resembled the word neat.

            “We can grab breakfast afterward,” Yen continued.  “You’re actually up in time to eat the breakfast foods.”

            “I’m always up in time for breakfast foods, I just don’t get hungry until later.”

            “Well, that later time will be early enough for breakfast today.”

            Kit blew past him as she exited the bathroom, her oversized pajamas hanging off her narrow frame.  She went back to her room and started digging through her many cupboards, suddenly no longer able to remember where anything was.

            “What are you looking for?” Yen followed at a sedate pace.

            “Gloves.  Any gloves.”

            “Gloves?  What do you need gloves for?”

            “I don’t want these to be the first things he sees,” Kit held her hands out toward Yen for a second before returning to her frantic search.

            Yen smiled broadly.  “You have a crush on him.”

            “What?” Kit startled, feeling her face turn what must have been a bright shade of red.  “What are you talking about?  I know next to nothing about him.”  Although she had heard him scream.  Anyone who had walked through that area at the wrong time of day had heard him.  She had also heard these hiccuping hitches of breath sometimes, something that was probably crying, when she sat down in her chair but hadn’t yet started to read.  And he heard her.  Maybe not every night, but there were times when he was definitely awake.  On occasion she heard the sound of a rattling inhalation make its way through the vent while she read.

            Yen shrugged.  “I know you.  You have a crush on him.”

            “I do not.  Give me a pair of those latex gloves you always seem to have on you.”

            “Yeah, that’s not happening.  Wear your work gloves, they’d make more sense.  In fact, while you find them, let me pick out what you’ll wear.”

            “Pick something nice… That doesn’t mean I have a crush on him!  I just like to look nice when I meet new people!”

            “When we met, you were dressed like a hobo!” Yen called out from the closest.  That was true.  She had been working in the facility’s garage, helping another mechanic build an engine for a new off road vehicle, when Yen came to ask her about starting a project together, a new machine for surgery that wouldn’t require slicing people completely open.  She had been wearing ratty pants and an equally ratty sweater, both of which had been covered in oil and grease stains.

            “I didn’t know I’d be meeting anyone that day!” Kit tried to defend herself.

            “It was your second week!  You were still meeting new people every day!”

            She located her work gloves and pulled them out, flapping them around to shake out any dust that may have accumulated.

            “Here, I picked out these.”  Yen returned holding some clean, grey cargoes, and a tight black, hooded sweater, one of the few she owned without some sort of nerd logo on it.

            “Those aren’t nice.”

            “No, but they’re you.  You’re not going to be wearing interview clothes if that’s what you’re thinking, especially with those gloves.  This will make it look like you didn’t just get up and were actually working this morning.”

            He had a point.  Kit grabbed the clothes and absconded with them to the closet where she could get dressed.

            “Why couldn’t Khnel wait until this afternoon?” Kit complained.  “Why would she just spring this on me?”

            “Maybe to see how you would react?  How should I know?”

            “Because you work with her.  You know her better than I do.”

            “Maybe she thought you’d already be awake.”

            “Ha!  Everyone knows I sleep in late.”

            “Not every day.”  Yen knew about the occasional nightmares.

            “How do I look?”  Kit returned to her room and stood before Yen with her arms out.

            “You look fine,” he said, straightening the way the hood fell across her shoulders, and then adjusting her hair slightly.

            “Just fine?”

            “You’re the one who wants to wear the gloves.  I also assume you’ll be wearing your sunglasses.”

            “I need to see.”

            Yen smoothed out the fabric of her shirt a little.  “Okay, put your boots on.”

            Kit did, feeling like a little kid.

“You ready to go now?” he asked, once she had finished lacing up.

            “No.”

            “Are we going now anyway?”

            “Yes.”  Kit followed Yen out into the common area.  She almost grabbed her book by instinct, knowing where she would be going.  “Where’s Khnel?”

            “With Barnes.”

            Fumbling a bit because of her gloves, Kit put her sunglasses on.  Her body was thrumming as she followed Yen through the hallways.  She wasn’t ready for this.  She had had no time to prepare.  What was she going to say?  What was _he_ going to say?  Oh god, what if he recognized her voice?

            They reached Barnes’ room far too soon.  Kit wanted to run away in a panic, but then Yen was knocking on the door and letting himself in, and Kit had no other option than to follow.


	8. Chapter 8

Bucky sat at his table, rolling his ball back and forth between his hands. He had finally cleaned the table up that morning, moving most of the stuff to a drawer in the dresser. The gun remained in one of his pockets, however, as did a pen. Pens were pretty good for stabbing with, so he tended to have one on him most of the time, since he wasn’t allowed to keep the kitchen knives and the razor in the bathroom was electric. Khnel had brought him a lighter and a metal bowl to burn the scraps of the red book in, so his room smelt a little smoky, but that was alright.

Khnel was with him, standing near the window, her posture one of impatience. She had sent Dr. Yen to get the prosthetist, and had apparently expected him back quicker than this. Bucky didn’t care about that either. It wasn’t like he had a schedule to stick to, not one that he knew about anyway. Khnel just seemed annoyed by this whole meeting. There was something about it that she didn’t like, but she said nothing to Bucky. Maybe she had planned on introducing Bucky to a very specific set of people first, and the prosthetist wasn’t one of them.

Yen knocked on the door, the same knock he used virtually every day before entering Bucky’s room. As he stepped in, Bucky rolled his ball off the table and stashed it in a pocket, while rising from his seat.

“Mr. Barnes, may I introduce you to the prosthetist, Ms. Marcellus,” Khnel made the introduction as the woman walked in.

She was not at all what Bucky had been expecting. First of all, she was she, and second of all, she was tall but waif thin, making her all arms and legs. He had been expecting a man, probably one a bit on the burly side given the arm that had been built for Bucky. She did dress a lot like a guy, however, and he could barely make out her face beneath the large aviators.

“Please, call me Kit,” she said, holding out her hand.

Bucky knew that voice. It belonged to the woman who had been reading to him. He kept his face controlled though, revealing nothing.

“And you can call me Bucky,” he said, briefly shaking the offered hand that was covered in a glove for some reason. There was something odd about the way the hand felt but he didn’t have time to think about it.

“Dr. Yen said something about wanting to meet me?” She kept shifting her weight. Nervous? Because of who he was, or because she was the reader?

“I wanted to thank you personally for building me my new arm. It works great.”

“Well, you’re very welcome.”

“Please, sit down. I was hoping we could talk some. Yen told me a bit about how my arm works, and I was interested in learning more.” He wasn’t really interested at all, but he had to say something to get her to stay. He wanted to hear her keep speaking, to know for sure that she was who he thought she was. He had to reconcile this woman with the short, frumpy bookworm he had pictured in his head.

Kit glanced at Khnel, but then hastily took a seat before the doctor could react. “What do you want to know?”

Bucky sat down in his own chair. “Well, I was told that the outer skin is vibranium, but the support system underneath is something else.”

“Titanium.” A one-word answer was not a lot, but she seemed to realize this and found more to say after a second of hesitation. “Certain steels are stronger, but titanium is lighter. It’s also highly resistant to corrosion in things like sea water. You don’t have to worry about getting it wet.”

“Dr. Yen told me that about the shoulder, so I wouldn’t have to be concerned about it when showering.”

“Right, of course he would. You can also swim in chlorinated pools.” She was awkward and definitely nervous, but Bucky didn’t think it was because of him. Her head kept turning, ever so slightly, as if she were sneaking glances at Khnel from behind those large shades of hers. Maybe she knew about Khnel’s displeasure about the meeting, or had picked up on it from the woman’s posture. Yen eventually saved the day.

“Dr. Khnel? Would you mind if I talked to you for a moment? In private?” he spoke.

Khnel considered it for a moment, but agreed, probably unable to deny such a request from a former patient.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Khnel told Bucky, following Yen out of the room. The way Kit visibly relaxed a little made him hope the doctor was gone for longer than that, although she was still nervous and fidgeting with her gloves.

Bucky decided to name the elephant in the room. “You’re the one who’s been reading to me at night, right?”

Behind her glasses, Kit’s face turned an exceptional shade of scarlet.

“Don’t be embarrassed, please,” although Bucky found it somewhat amusing. “But it is you?”

“Yeah.” Her voice had gone dry.

“Then thank you for more than just the arm.” While curious as to why she did it, Bucky wasn’t about to ask. She looked like she might explode as was without having to try to explain herself. “During the worst of my therapy, your visits were the best part of my day. Or I guess night. Whatever.”

“Uh huh,” she squeaked.

Bucky couldn’t stop from chuckling. “I’m really sorry, I’m embarrassing the hell out of you.”

“Yeah, well… It’s fine.” Kit obviously had no clue how to handle this situation. Either she was a phenomenal actress, or, more likely, was the complete opposite from those who had taken care of him the last few weeks, and was incapable of letting things roll off her. Maybe that’s why Khnel didn’t want them to meet? In case Bucky relapsed into anger? He might be able to really hurt this woman with his words.

“I won’t mention it again. But I am curious to get to know you. Does Kit stand for anything?”

“No, it’s just Kit. I was never told where the name came from.”

“It’s different. You’re clearly not from Wakanda, so where are you from?”

“Canada.”

“Big place.”

“It is.” She didn’t seem to want to narrow it down, or didn’t realize that Bucky had been expecting her to.

“I’m from Brooklyn.”

“Yeah, I read a bit about you.”

“Oh? Good things I hope.”

She plucked at her gloves and stared at her hands. “Mostly good things. The times when you were under your own control were good.”

“Were you working on something?” Bucky quickly changed topics, realizing that, yeah, of course she would be nervous around him, he was the Winter Soldier after all.

“Pardon?” She raised her head again.

Bucky pointed to her gloves.

“Oh. No. I mean… fuck.”

It wasn’t the kind of response Bucky had been expecting.

“I was asleep. Before coming here. Yen had to wake me up.”

“That doesn’t explain the gloves.”

Kit sighed, as if she were about to admit to doing something wrong. “This is dumb.” For a second, Bucky thought she was talking about meeting him, but then she pulled off the gloves and rolled up her sleeves. Her hands were like his, the cybernetic one. From half way down her forearms to her fingertips, she was made of metal. He also noticed the scars marring the skin above them, a couple of years old by his guess.

“Like mine,” Bucky pointlessly pointed out.

“I didn’t want them to be the first thing you saw, to be the first thing you thought of me.”

“My first thought of you, was that you weren’t who I expected.”

“No?”

“No, I was expecting a dude. You were only ever mentioned to me as the prosthetist.”

Kit laughed, a compulsive sound. She had a nice smile. He wondered if it reached her eyes.

“Am I allowed to ask about the sunglasses?”

Kit’s smile faded and she adjusted the frames on her face. “My eyes have a sensitivity to light.”

“Do you want to switch places?” Bucky half rose, realizing the main source of light, the window, was at his back.

“No, it’s fine,” she insisted. “It wouldn’t really help anyway. Your room is just bright in general. Even the hallways are too bright for me during the day.”

“I haven’t been out of this room since I woke up.” He sat back down.

“Oh?”

“Khnel thought it would be best. She’s going to give me a tour later, though. Apparently I’m now allowed to wander at will.”

“That’ll be good. Getting out, I mean. I have no idea what Khnel’s tour guide skills are like.”

“You should come on the tour with us.” Bucky had no idea why he suggested that, and almost instantly regretted it.

“I’d like to, but the idea of spending that much time around Khnel sounds unpleasant.”

“You two don’t get along I take it.”

“I guess,” she shrugged, turning her head away.

It was interesting to Bucky that he could tell when she was breaking eye contact without ever seeing her eyes. She broke eye contact a lot.

“I noticed the designs of our hands are similar, so I take it you made your own?” Bucky felt foolish. He didn’t know how to talk to people anymore. He kept changing topics, trying to keep her interested, but she looked uncomfortable. She wasn’t making an excuse to leave, but Bucky felt he was doing a terrible job at making her want to stay.

“Yes, I made mine.” Kit held out her hands to look at them as though admiring painted fingernails or a set of rings. “They were harder to make than yours, since I didn’t have these at the time.”

“I can imagine.” Bucky wanted to say something clever, but his mind was drawing a blank.

“So everything is working fine with your arm?” Kit asked, filling in the moment of silence he left hanging.

“Yeah, it works great. Better than the last one. I’m amazed at much I can _feel_ with it. I can tell textures apart.”

“Yes, that was our biggest breakthrough. The team I was working with on my own hands spent a lot of time getting that right.”

“Well, you and the team did a great job.”

“I’ll tell them you think so.” She was smiling again. Apparently work was a good subject.

“So what have you been working on since you put me back together?”

“I’ve been assisting another team on the X-C83J for the new VTOL.”

Bucky had no idea what she just said. It showed on his face and she laughed again. Had she deliberately used jargon to confuse him?

“The X-C83J is an engine.”

“And what’s a VTOL?”

“It stands for vertical take-off and landing. It’s a type of aircraft.”

“Like that Quinjet thing Steve brought me here in?”

“Yeah, the Quinjet has VTOL capabilities.”

“No one ever told me what they’re actually called. I just kept thinking of them as heli-planes.” He didn’t need to know what things were called in order to blow them up.

“I guess there’s a lot of terms people never bothered to fill you in on, huh?”

“First time I heard the term flower power, I thought it was an alternative energy source.”

Kit found that hilarious. “I can see how that mistake could be made.”

“So now that I’m allowed out of my room, what’s there to do around here?”

“There’s the gym, where people organize sports teams. Um, you might not be allowed to play though. Super soldier serum and all, kind of gives you an unfair advantage.”

“I’m not really interested in team sports anyway.”

“There’s the bowling alley. The library. Umm…” Kit laughed at herself. “Sorry, I’m terrible at this. I usually work on my own stuff when I’m between projects, or hang out in my room watching TV. I’m boring like that.”

“You’re saying this to the guy who hasn’t left his room in weeks.”

“Yeah, but that was doctor’s orders. That’s different than self-confinement.”

“Feel free to recommend me stuff I should watch. Yen’s given me a couple to start with.”

“I’ll write you list later.”

“Thanks.” So she didn’t plan on disappearing on him once she left this room. “Can I ask you favour? You can say no.”

“Depends on the favour.”

“Can you take your glasses off for me? Just once? It helps me to trust people if I had can see their eyes.”

Kit shrunk in her seat, all the good will Bucky had managed to engender falling away. She was awkward and uncomfortable again.

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to. It’s fine.”

“No, no, it’s just… I don’t let people see my eyes very often. They stare.”

“Why, are they bugging out of your head or something?” Bucky hoped they weren’t, or else that would have been a terrible thing to say.

“Might as well show you.” Kit lowered her glasses slowly, blinking rapidly at the light for a few seconds.

Bucky leaned forward to make sure he was seeing them right. They were metal. Instead of having whites to her eyes, they gleamed silver. Her pupils were lenses, and the irises were tiny pieces of dark, layered metal, tinted slightly blue. He watched as her eyes adjusted and focused on his face. Then he remembered she felt uncomfortable with people staring, and looked away. Or was that worse? He leaned back in his chair and focused on her mouth.

“How good is your vision with those?” he asked.

“20/20, so average. They’re not right yet, though. I can see great in the dark, but light is blinding. It washes things out.” She put her glasses back on.

“Did that… happen in the same accident that resulted in Yen needing a prosthetic leg?” That question might have been too personal, but Bucky didn’t know how _not_ to ask.

Before she could answer, and maybe she wouldn’t have, Dr. Yen and Dr. Khnel came back into the room. Bucky carefully watched Khnel’s face when she entered, looking for a reaction to Kit still being there, but he saw nothing.

“We should be getting to breakfast, Kit, don’t you think?” Yen spoke first.

“Yeah.” Her voice cracked a little. Bucky thought his question had upset her and mentally kicked himself for it. The first person he had a chance to talk to since being fixed, the first one outside of his medical team, and she was leaving on a bad note. “Yeah, let’s go eat,” she continued after clearing her throat.

“Should I find you later for that list, or will you find me?” Bucky asked as she got up, picking up her gloves in the process.

“I’ll come find you if you don’t find me first,” she answered, smiling at him. So she wasn’t too upset.

“What list?” Khnel asked, her brow pinching ever so slightly together.

“She’s going to recommend some movies for me. I have a lot of catching up to do.”

“See you later,” Kit waved as she left the room with Dr. Yen.

“Why don’t you like her?” Bucky immediately turned to Khnel once the door was closed.

“I don’t dislike her,” Khnel answered. “I just don’t think it would be good for either of you if you became friends.”

“What a weird thing to say. Friends are good, last I checked. Or is that something that’s changed since I was under?”

The doc said nothing in defence of her words. “I would like to have a talking session before we go on the tour.”

Bucky sighed. “All right. So what are we going to talk about today?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been another four chapters, so I'm promoting the books I sell on Amazon again. It's my way of justifying writing and posting something for free.  
> [Click here to view what I have published](https://www.amazon.com/Kristal-Stittle/e/B006NL1X4W)


	9. Chapter 9

“I was so awkward.” Kit sat slumped at the table, her face hidden behind her hands.

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Yen insisted.

“No, it was worse.” Her voice was muffled by her metal and rubber palms. “I didn’t know what to say. I said stupid things. I can’t even remember some of the stupid things I said because I was so nervous.”

“Then maybe they weren’t stupid.”

Kit slid her hands down her face, letting her glasses settle back into place. Her glare was wasted behind the lenses.

“Eat your breakfast,” he gestured to the plate in front of her.

She let her hands flop onto the table. “You think I’m hungry after that?”

“You’re too thin. You need to eat more.”

To placate him, Kit took a huge bite out of the buttered toast, chewed, and swallowed. “Happy?”

“I’ll be happy if you clean your plate.”

“Thanks, _Dad_.” Kit used her fork to roll her sausage around.

“If I were your dad, you wouldn’t have an eating problem to begin with.”

The flat seriousness in which he said this caused Kit to laugh.

“Do you know what you’re going to recommend he watch?” Yen changed topics.

“Not a clue. My favourites, I guess.”

“You should ask him to watch one of them together.”

“Stop!”

“What?”

“Trying to set me up, or whatever.”

“Why not? He’s a good looking guy, and he understands the metal hands thing better than anyone.”

“Kill me now.” Kit slid her chair back so that she could thump her forehead onto the table, her glasses nearly falling off her face.

“You’re saying you wouldn’t date him?”

Kit groaned. “Why are you still talking?”

“That’s not a no.”

Maybe if she stopped responding, Yen would stop talking. In all honesty, she didn’t know what she wanted. She wanted to be near Barnes—near Bucky—but it was like she didn’t want to be seen by him. Probably because she didn’t know how to act around him, so she assumed she acted like an idiot, and who wanted an idiot around?

Her lack of response worked, and Yen had fallen silent. Kit lifted her head once again. Yen was almost done eating. Not wanting to end up sitting there alone, and also not wanting to waste food, she started shovelling it from her plate into her mouth, eating mechanically. Still, she couldn’t finish it all. Her stomach just didn’t want to keep accepting food, and chewing just seemed too exhausting to keep up. By the time Yen had finished his meal, she had eaten what she considered an acceptable amount. Hopefully the botanists or experimental farmers were currently collecting food compost, so that what remained on her plate wasn’t a total waste. She and Yen carried their plates to the deposit, a conveyer belt, which took the dishes away through a slot to where a kitchen staff member separated everything for washing.

Outside the cafeteria, Yen and Kit went their separate ways, back to their separate tasks. Kit returned to her room, taking her sunglasses off and slumping at her drafting table. She was experimenting with designs for housing the new VTOL’s engine. The act of sketching smooth lines, and focusing on shapes and contours allowed her to relax; to forget about the fact that she had embarrassed herself earlier. She’d write Bucky that list later, hand it over to him, and then avoid him for the rest of his stay here. That was probably for the best. She may not even have to actively avoid him, it was possible, likely even, that their paths would never cross.

Kit had so convinced herself of this that she hadn’t expected to see Bucky later that afternoon. Focused intently on her work, the tap on her glass wall startled her. She looked up, and there he was, standing right on the other side of the glass from where the top of her table was pressed against it. He grinned at her reaction and waved. Before Kit could wave back, he turned his head, being called by Khnel who was across the communal space. It appeared to Kit that she had just been talking to someone, giving Bucky the chance to wander slightly away from the tour over to Kit’s room. He must have spotted her through the tinted glass.

Bucky turned back to Kit for a second, rolling his eyes like a high schooler that had just been called away by a teacher. Kit barely managed to raise her hand in a wave before he was walking away again. So now he knew where she lived, just as she knew where he did.

She next came across Bucky at dinner. Yen had insisted she come eat with him in the cafeteria again. He had a big project starting tomorrow, as he was joining a research team that was looking into something that was related to stomachs. He didn’t know when they’d next get a chance to eat together, so he made her come with him. As they were sitting at their preferred table, Bucky suddenly slid into the chair next to Kit.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asked.

“By all means,” Yen offered.

“You two are the only ones I know here now that Khnel’s gone home, and I haven’t seen my nurses lately,” he explained. “Interesting place you got here. I take it you both live in the facility?”

“That’s right.”

“Sorry for startling you earlier,” Bucky turned to Kit.

“It’s no problem. You’re not the first.” He wasn’t the first to startle her out of her work, but he was the only one to ever do it just to say hi.

“I don’t suppose you’ve made that list yet, have you?”

“No, sorry, I haven’t gotten around to it.” Kit mentally slapped her forehead at having forgotten.

“That’s okay. There’s no rush.”

“What are your plans after dinner?” Yen asked him.

Kit hoped he wasn’t thinking what she thought he might be thinking.

“Hiding out in my room, to be honest. I think after this meal I’ll have had more than enough human interaction for the day. Dr. Khnel should be happy with it.”

“Down time is good,” Yen nodded. “Don’t push yourself.”

“It’s weird, being able to walk around now.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Kit offered pointlessly.

“I’m sure I will.”

A natural break in the conversation occurred. Kit tried to think of something to say. What do you talk about with a guy like that? He wouldn’t know any current popular culture stuff, and anything she asked about his life could be a hurtful subject. There was only so many times she could ask about how the arm was working out for him, and that day’s allotment had already been used up.

“So what was your favourite part of the tour?” Yen asked, of course finding a safe subject.

“I’m not sure. I’m still processing how big this place is, and I didn’t even really get to see all that much of it.”

“It’s pretty much a fair sized town in here. If you can picture something being in a fair sized town, we likely have it here.”

Kit wished she had thought of that earlier when Bucky had asked her about what there was to do around here, because that was a much better answer.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bucky said.

Yen kept most of the conversation going through dinner. He would find simple, easy questions to ask Bucky, or engage Kit in a discussion about something, whether Bucky knew what the hell they were talking about or not. Whenever Kit was speaking, she noticed that Bucky would always turn his attention to her, just as he paid attention to Yen when he was talking. He was always listening, even if he couldn’t follow. It made Kit feel both pleasant and uncomfortable, and she had no idea how to reconcile these opposing forces.

After dinner, all of them headed in different directions. Kit and Bucky both returned to their respective rooms, while Yen went to meet up with someone from the team he was starting with tomorrow.

Kit worked until tomorrow became today, but was only half focused on her sketches. As it got later and later, she found her attentions drawn to the novel along the side of her table. By this time, she’d usually find herself carrying it down the hallways to Bucky’s room. But now Bucky knew who she was. It would be weird to read outside his room again. She resisted the impulse. Instead, she turned her wall opaque and went to bed, where she tossed and turned for over an hour before being able to fall asleep.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had less time to edit this one, so there might be some errors.

Bucky had spent the night sitting in his overstuffed chair, but Kit had never shown up. There was no reading that night. It made sense. Maybe if he hadn’t mentioned that he recognized her voice, then maybe she would have come back. He shouldn’t have said anything. He especially shouldn’t have told her that it was the best part of his day during the worst times. He shouldn’t have put that on her shoulders, it had probably scared her off. So he stayed awake longer than usual, eventually nodding off where he sat.

The following day, Khnel came for their usual talk in the morning.

“Starting tomorrow, we’re going to have our talks in my office upstairs,” she explained.

Bucky was fine with that, and she had shown him where her office was during the tour.

After the session was over, Buck didn’t know what to do with himself. Everyone here had a job but him. Not that he thought he was ready for any sort of responsibility. Besides, while he had been riding a kind of high the last two days, he was now crashing and exhausted. He retrieved both his breakfast and his lunch from the cafeteria on his own, and brought them to his room. He didn’t try to talk to anyone along the way, to meet anyone new, and no one had tried to talk to him. Some people flat out stared, but most seemed to treat him like everyone else. He wondered how many of the people he saw had worked on him. How many were involved in his freezing? Who had been consultants for Khnel and Yen? Which ones had Kit turned to when she needed help with something? He had no idea. He had no idea who knew what about him, and he knew absolutely nothing about them in turn, not even their names.

While hiding out in his room, he retrieved his notebook from a drawer and started drawing on the pages that hadn’t been ruined. Seeing Kit working at her drafting table the other day reminded him of the art classes he had taken with Stevie before the war. He decided to work the fundamentals he had learned, to see what he was still capable of creating. It was strange at first, and he had trouble thinking of what to draw. He started with things in his room, but quickly ran out of new subjects and grew bored with drawing the same stuff just at different angles. He eventually drew Steve’s shield, Sam’s wing suit, Scott’s helmet, and Clint’s bow. He made some impressionistic sketches of Wanda and her powers, alongside rough doodles of that spider kid. When he could no longer decide on things to draw, he returned to the colouring book and reminded himself of colour theory on the clean pages. His hand was surprisingly cramped by the time he decided he should get some dinner, although it returned to normal soon enough.

In the cafeteria, he found Kit waiting for an order. He made his own, then sidled up alongside her. He thought he should make a conscious effort to talk to her today. He didn’t want her to think he was angry, or something like that, over the fact that she hadn’t shown up last night.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve written that list yet?” He wasn’t going to bring up the reading at all, it would be weird for both of them.

“Damn it, not yet. I’m sorry, I keep getting into my work and forgetting.”

“That’s okay. It’s not like I have anything to watch them on anyway, not without using one of the public computers.”

“Why don’t I write it out now? I was going to take my food back to my room with me, if you don’t mind following along. I can write it up while you’re there.”

“Yeah, okay.”

They both stood in silence while awaiting their meals. Kit got hers first and waited for Bucky to be served his.

“I have no idea what most of this is,” Bucky commented as Kit led him back out into the hallways. He had ordered the special meal of the day without checking what it was first.

“Some sort of bean salad,” Kit told him. She had the same. “I don’t think I could pronounce the name while looking at in writing, let alone remember it.”

“Smells good though.”

“It probably will be. The chefs here are very good.”

“I noticed.”

“Sometimes I miss regular food through,” Kit went on. “I mean, regular to me. I guess it would be regular to you too, being from New York and all. Hamburgers and hotdogs are both special meals that they only sometimes make. Steak is more common, but often they make it all fancy, with weird spices and stuff. You can get grilled cheese whenever though, and eggs and sausages and stuff at breakfast, but most of the time it’s food I can’t pronounce. I mean, I could make my own stuff in the little kitchens, but I’m definitely not fond of cooking.” She was babbling and seemed to sense it, for she suddenly went silent.

“I’m willing to try anything,” Bucky told her.

“Well that’s good, because here you’ll certainly get the chance to do so.”

They reached Kit’s workshop and she just walked in, seeming to expect him to follow, so Bucky did. He was surprised to find a bed in there.

“This is where you live.”

“Huh?” Kit glanced back at him as she put her bowl down on the workbench. She followed his gaze to the bed, which wasn’t made, the blanket and sheet in a twisted bundle. “Oh. Yeah, I find it easier to sleep and work in the same place. Sorry about the mess.”

Bucky shrugged. It didn’t make a difference to him.

“You can sit,” she offered him a straight-backed chair next to the workbench, so he sat.

He watched as she hurriedly searched through some cupboards, locating some regular sized paper unlike the large pad draped over her drafting table. While she crossed the room to grab a pen from the drafting table, Bucky took a bite of his bean salad. It _was_ good.

“Right,” she plopped down on the wheeled desk chair. “What to start with?”

Bucky ate while she wrote with one hand, and popped forkfuls of bean salad into her mouth with the other. Was she more comfortable around him now? Or was she making a conscious effort to be friendly to him? Was it possible she thought that he was angry with her for not reading last night, and was being nicer because of it? He had no way of knowing without asking, and he wasn’t about to ask.

“Okay, here you go,” Kit handed over the list. “They’re in no particular order. Oh, but watch this one before this one. That one’s a sequel.”

“Got it.” Now that he had the list, Bucky didn’t know what to do with himself. Was he supposed to leave? He didn’t really want to just yet, not to mention that he hadn’t finished eating. “So you’re drawing plans for something?” he made another attempt at conversation.

“Yeah, I’m working on different housings for that engine I mentioned earlier. The actual outer design of the VTOL hasn’t been nailed down just yet, so I’m making as many different designs as I can, so that _one_ of them should take minimal modifications to fit.”

“Did you go to a design school or something?”

“Yeah, kinda. I took an industrial design course in college for a little while.”

“Didn’t stick with it though?”

“I switched to robotics.”

“I’m glad for that,” Bucky tried to joke. She smiled, so it was at least appreciated. “I took art courses once.”

“Yeah? Like, art-art?”

“I don’t know what you consider art-art, but I guess you could call it that. Steve and I were taking it together.”

“Wow. Captain America and the Winter Solider were going to be artists? I’m sorry. I guess I shouldn’t call you the Winter Solider, should I? Is that a thing I shouldn’t do?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it’s who I was, I have to accept that it’s a part of me.” Saying it was easy, while doing it was a lot harder. “I learned since waking up that Hitler wanted to be an artist too.”

“What made you look that up?”

“I wanted to know how the war eventually ended. Suicide was not the way I imagined him going. And I wasn’t going to be an artist, by the way. I took that class because Steve did and I figured there would be girls. I was more interested in boxing.”

“One of my grandpa’s used to box. He wouldn’t teach me though.”

“I could teach you if you ever wanted to know. When Khnel showed me some of the gyms I saw there was some boxing stuff in one of them. I taught Steve to box when he used to be smaller than you.”

“I might take you up on that,” she grinned. “I don’t think I’d ever be able to box against anyone though. Metal hands and wrists kind of give me an unfair advantage and all that. And you’d just crush everyone, me included.”

“You can still learn technique. If you ever want to learn, just ask. It’s not like I have much to do all day.”

“I’ll let you know.”

They continued to talk for longer than they ate. Bucky learned a bunch of random stuff about Kit’s grandfathers. While he wasn’t up to sharing his own experiences in the war, he was interested in hearing about the kinds of things others had passed on to their children and grandchildren. He told her pre-war stories, about what living in Brooklyn was like back in the twenties and thirties. She was fascinated, and didn’t seem to find it at all weird that he had been alive back then. Maybe it was because she had obviously been quite close with her grandparents and had grown up hearing stories all about those days.

Eventually Bucky realized how late it was, when he noticed that the lights out in the common area had been dimmed.

“I should probably be letting you sleep.”

Kit startled and looked at the time, apparently also having lost track. “I was supposed to be working, actually,” she laughed at herself. “I’m often up pretty late.” Which was a fact they both knew and neither acknowledged.

“I’ll return your dishes to the cafeteria for you,” Bucky offered as he stood up.

“Okay, thanks.”

“Maybe I’ll see tomorrow?”

“If you want,” Kit shrugged.

“All right.”

That night, Bucky tried sleeping in his bed. He was restless, and ended up pacing and then doing chin-ups before finally making another attempt. Talking to Kit had gone well. She had definitely seemed a lot more relaxed than during their first meeting. But he dwelled on the Winter Soldier mention. It was a weirdly displaced chunk of his life that didn’t feel like his own, because he wasn’t making his own decisions and had had no memories of himself. His current memories of the thoughts he had had during that time were strange and not his own. It was like having someone else’s memories in his head. Khnel was helping him deal with that, but the process was slow. Eventually he got a few hours of sleep.

The next day, Bucky went to his meeting with Khnel. He brought his breakfast there, figuring one trip away from his room that morning was all he wanted to do. He didn’t tell her about talking with Kit the night before. Khnel had already made her stance clear on the subject of them becoming friends. Bucky wasn’t going to let someone tell him who he could and could not be friends with though. He was done with that.

Most of the day passed in his room again. He exercised, drew, coloured, cleaned the pistol that didn’t need cleaning, and completed some Sudoku puzzles and crosswords. The crosswords were especially difficult because a lot of the clues were about things he had never heard of. Before dinner, he ended up leaving his room to find a public computer with access to the facility’s media library. Putting on a pair of headphones, he located the first movie on the list Kit had given him and watched it.

It blew him away. He watched _Jurassic Park_ , which for Kit must be an older movie, but to Bucky it looked amazing. He had seen a lot of crazy technologies since regaining control of his mind, hell some was attached to him, but he had no idea they could make dinosaurs look so real. After the movie ended, he went to get dinner, hoping to bump into Kit again. He wanted to talk to her about the movie, about the dinosaurs in particular. It had been the first movie she wrote down, so it must have been one of her favourites. But she wasn’t in the cafeteria. He spent the time waiting for his food to be ready debating with himself about whether he should go find her in her room. Was that too intrusive? He had no idea. Upon receiving his plate, he decided he’d go to the common area and see what she was doing through her glass wall. If she appeared to be busy, he’d slip away back to his room.

Kit was at her drafting table, but certainly didn’t look busy. She was leaning against the tiny stub of a backrest her stool had, her shoulders slumped, arms hanging at her sides as she stared up at the ceiling. A couple of people hung around in the common area, talking and reviewing files and such. They must not have been bothering Kit though, for she had her door wide open. Bucky decided it would be okay to approach.

“Hey,” he said as he reached the opening.

Kit flopped forward, smiling as she saw him. “Hey, come on in.”

“I watched _Jurassic Park_ ,” he told her, sitting in the same chair he had the other day. Dishes matching his own sat empty on the workbench, so she must have already eaten.

“What did you think?” Her question was cautious. Unless Bucky was mistaken, she was invested in his answer.

“It was great. That’s why I’m here, I wanted someone to talk to about the dinosaurs.”

“They’re awesome, right? I mean, they’ve been proven to be inaccurate, because apparently dinosaurs had feathers, but who cares?”

While Bucky ate, Kit went on to tell him all about the raptor suits, and giant, animatronic T-Rex that had been made for the movie. She even went on the internet with her tablet and showed him some making-of videos.

After that day, Bucky settled into a sort of routine. Khnel kept shifting his appointments around, the only part of his day that changed. Some days he didn’t even see her, but most of the time the appointments were in the afternoon now. He started his day by eating breakfast in his room and spending the majority of the day alone. He would then venture out to watch a movie, and afterward find Kit to talk about it. Kit didn’t seem to mind this routine. She started waiting for Bucky to show up and they would go and get their dinner together. She did most of the talking, telling Bucky all about various film theories and techniques. She seemed to know what she was talking about when she discussed cinematography, and acting, and writing. Probably picked it up from the special features she kept referencing. Most of Bucky’s contributions were about colour and composition, and the thoughts of a first time viewer who didn’t have many other movies to compare them to. He would then leave her so that she could work some more, and return to his room.

He still had trouble sleeping, often having to pace or watch the jungle or sit in the overstuffed chair for a couple of hours. Kit never appeared outside his room to read again, but he adjusted to the late nights as being a part of the routine. For the first time in years, decades, he felt some form of stability in his life.


	11. Chapter 11

            Kit felt silly spending all day waiting for dinner.  During the day, when she wasn’t focused, she would wonder what movie Bucky would watch.  Even when she finally got to go to the flight garage and build the engine housing for the new prototype VTOL, she made sure she was always back in her room in plenty of time before dinner.  It wasn’t often she got to talk about movies.  Yen like to talk about their subtext, and deeper meanings, but Kit enjoyed the actual construction of films.  If she ever quit working at the facility, she would definitely try for a job with a Hollywood effects team.

            She was sad how rarely she got to see Yen these days.  His new project took up a lot of time, apparently.  Still he popped his head in every now and again, checking in.  She noticed he never seemed to pop in when Bucky was around though.  Was that a coincidence, or was Yen deliberately avoiding those moments?  If he was, Kit would need to have a talk with him.  She and Bucky were just friends, and Yen was her friend too, so he should hang out with them.

            “What the fuck was that ending?”  Bucky walked in without bothering with a greeting, knowing he was welcome whenever her door was open.

            Kit had been fiddling with some wires, making a pointless little roller coaster mock up while she waited for him.  She turned in her chair to face him, trying to figure out what movie he was talking about.

            “ _Inception_ ,” he told her.

            Kit laughed.  “Oh man, yeah!  I totally forgot about how that felt the first time.”

            “How the fuck could they just leave it hanging there like that?  A bunch of people stared at me when I yelled at the computer.”

            Part of Kit felt bad for laughing at his utter annoyance, but only a little part.  “Let’s go get dinner, and I’ll tell you about the wedding band theory.”

            “Wedding band theory?”

            So Kit explained the theory that the internet came up with as they walked to the cafeteria together.  Usually their conversations stuck to movies, but the nature of this one, with its dreams, had them going off on a tangent.  Kit ended up sharing some the dreams she had had during her life.  Bucky was in the middle of telling her one that he remembered from before the war, when they reached her room and saw that the glass wall was opaque.

            “Is someone in your room?” Bucky wondered.  During a previous visit, Kit had shown him how the smart glass worked.

            “I doubt it.”  Kit poked in her head and checked.  “No, there’s no one in here.”

            “All the labs are opaque,” Bucky noted, causing Kit to step back out and look around the common area.

            “Ah, that explains it then.  They must be updating the system.  All the glass shifts back into its default setting when they do that.”  She walked back into her room, unconcerned.  It wasn’t the first time they had updated the system.  She had probably skimmed over the email blast about it happening that day without absorbing the information.

As Bucky followed her in, the door swinging closed behind him so that they wouldn’t bother anyone in the common area, she turned on the reading light over her bed.  It made it so that he wasn’t in total darkness but it was still dim enough that she could still comfortably take her aviators off.  She had gotten used to him being able to see her eyes.  They both took their now accustomed seats, her in her rolling work chair while he sat in the straight backed one.  She kicked off her boots, always feeling more comfortable barefoot.

            “Would you mind if I took off my own boots?” Bucky asked after watching her.

            “Naw, go for it.”

            Bucky’s laces were done up properly, unlike hers.  He took longer getting off his boots, and then yanking off his socks and stuffing them inside.  He stretched and flexed his toes, and she noticed he had very defined feet.

            “Dreams are weird,” Kit said, getting back to their conversation.

            “No weirder than life,” Bucky commented.

            “Did you forget about the dream I told you about, where I had a giant, moss covered spider for a pet?”

            “Did you forget about the aliens that once poured out of the sky over New York?” he retorted.

            “Fair point.  I guess you were frozen then, huh?”

            “Yeah.  Where were you?”

            “Here.  Nobody worked that day, hell, that week.  We all sat glued to our screens, watching the news.  King T’Chaka really beefed up security around here after that.”

            “Did anyone around here get to study the alien shit left behind?”

            “A tiny team was sent to New York, but I don’t know anything more than that.  I don’t know if they were ever given security clearance.  If they did, I’m pretty sure none of it came back here.”

            “I watched the news about Sokovia.”

            “Same thing, really, although we at least knew about the Avengers that time.  King T’Chaka must have felt differently after that than he did after New York, because he started sending out humanitarian aid teams.  Now, we’re stuck in this weird middle, where King T’Challa is doing what he can to honour his father, but is still trying to keep certain tech he owns under wraps.”

            “Tech like my arm, and your hands?”

            “Precisely.  While there are breakthroughs that would certainly help those who’ve lost their limbs, there are also some pretty bad consequences that can come from their leaking out.  I can just imagine some dictator lopping off the arms and legs of perfectly healthy people in order to install these instead.”  She looked at her hands, and then at Bucky’s arm.

            “They really are a marvel of technology, but yeah, you’re right.  Someone, somewhere, would do that.  People might even do it to themselves, or try to.”

            “They don’t understand what I would give to have my actual fingers back.  These work great, sure, but they’re still mechanical, and certainly not the same.  They’re also annoyingly heavy when I’m tired.”

            “Hey, but at least you can pry a door off its hinges if you ever felt like it,” Bucky joked, obviously trying to lighten the mode.

            “There is that,” Kit agreed, giving him a small smile.  She kept looking at his arm and her hands, thinking of something she never talked about.

            “You look like you want to ask something.”

            “I do?”

            “And that response makes me think I’m right.”

            Kit felt her face heat up, caught.  “It’s stupid.”

            “Come on, there’s no reason to feel embarrassed.  You’ve literally seen my insides.”

            “That would give you a reason not to be embarrassed, not me.”

            “Fair enough,” he grinned at her.  “But seriously, ask.  Whatever it is, I’ll bet I’d be more understanding than anyone else.”

            It was a bold claim to make without knowing the question, but Kit was certain that Bucky was right in this instance.

            “Well…  I just…”  Kit had to turn away from him, focusing on the tools and wires littering her desk.

            Bucky leaned forward just enough to swat her knee with the back of his hand, encouraging her to continue.

            She looked back at his face, needing to see his reaction.  “Would you touch my skin?  With your prosthetic hand?”

            His expression was one of curiosity, which was much better than what Kit had been expecting.  “Can I ask why?”

            “It’s stupid.  I’ve only ever known what my hands feel like to me, and I was just wondering…  I was wondering what they might feel like to someone else.  I’m sorry, it’s really stupid.”  Kit looked down at her hands, at the palms.

            Bucky scooted to the edge of his seat and leaned forward.  “I don’t think it’s stupid at all.  In fact, I totally get it.  I’ve never known what my hand must feel like to someone else.  It’s not stupid.”

            “Yeah?”  She met his eyes.

            “Yeah.  I’ll do it, and then you can do the same for me.”

            “Okay.  But it’s not going to be quite the same since my hands are smaller and-” Kit stopped cold and flushed bright red as Bucky placed his hand against her cheek.

            Her response didn’t do unnoticed.

            “I’m sorry,” Buck said, pulling his hand slightly away.  “Did you not mean your face?  It was the only part of your skin not currently covered.”

            “No, no, it’s okay.”  The heat now descended to her neck as well.  “I just wasn’t ready was all.”

            Bucky paused for a few seconds, then slowly returned his hand to her cheek.  A moment later, Kit raised her own hands and rested them gently on either side of his face.

            “They’re softer than I expected,” he commented.

            “Yeah,” Kit agreed, shifting her cheek beneath his palm.  “I guess we’re rougher on ourselves.”

            “Well I certainly am,” he said with a laugh, and Kit got to feel the smile beneath her hands.

            She found herself looking directly into his eyes.  And he was looking back into hers.  Not at them.  He wasn’t seeing prosthetics like everyone else, he was actually looking into them, as though maybe they contained the same amount of depth that they used to.  Kit couldn’t remember the last time someone had done that.

            “You really do have beautiful eyes,” he whispered under his breath, like a stray thought given voice.

            “Thank you,” was all she could think to respond with, her smile pulling up under his palm.

            “A beautiful smile too.  You’re actually very beautiful.”

            And then he was leaning in.  With his strength, it would have been easy for him to pull her forward, but he didn’t.  He came to her, and she let him by sliding her hands around to the back of his head.  Their lips found each other, softer than their hands.  Kit didn’t know whose tongue moved first, just that she could taste him.  His mouth was water and meat and the spice from that night’s dinner.  To Kit’s amusement, he also tasted vaguely of winter.

            When the embrace finally broke, Kit kept her eyes closed as Bucky pressed his forehead against hers.  His right hand, the one still made of flesh and blood, rose up to gently brush down the side of her face, the warmth drawing prickles to the surface of her skin.

            This time she pressed into him, her metallic fingers entwined in his hair.  Bucky pressed back, tasting her while she tasted him.  He slid off his seat, her chair rolling backward as he tried to move in closer.  The wheels clattered across the laminate flooring for six feet before the back of the chair struck the wall.

            Kit couldn’t help but giggle as Bucky stood awkwardly over her, his shoulders moving as he chuckled.  Her hands dropped to rest on his chest, while his moved to her hips.  As they were still laughing, his right hand slid up under the hem of her shirt, and their eyes met again.  A silent question came between them.

            “It’s been a long time,” Kit admitted.  “Not since…”  She tapped her fingers against the solidness of him.

            “For me, it hasn’t been since the late thirties, so I think I have you on that one,” he joked.

            “I suppose you do.”  Her right hand ran up and over his shoulder, tracing were flesh fused with metal beneath his shirt.  Her left hand then moved downward, gripping the bottom of it.  She felt a moment of hesitation, a moment of doubt, and then she pulled upward.

            Bucky immediately responded, ducking his head down and rolling his shoulders up to aid her in the removal of the fabric.

            “Guess you’ve seen this all before, huh?” he said as he freed first one arm and then the other.

            “A couple of times, yeah.”  Although not quite like this, not with these feelings coursing through her.

            Bucky gave her a moment to admire him, and then he was kissing her again.  His hands slid beneath her legs, and, without breaking contact, he lifted her off the chair simply by straightening his back.  With a few steps, he reached her bed and slowly laid her down upon it, her knees still hanging over the edge on either side of his legs.  As his hands slid around her, they moved upward, pulling her shirt with them.  Cold metal on one side, warm skin on the other.  The combination caused gooseflesh to race across Kit’s belly as Bucky disentangled his mouth from hers in order to get her shirt over her head and free of her arms.

            As he loomed over her, Bucky first took her hands in his, then proceeded to trace his fingers over her wrists.  He ran his fingers down her forearms to where the prosthetics met the skin, and then glided up to her shoulders, leaning more and more over Kit until he was as horizontal as her again.  For a length of time, which Kit had no hope of keeping track of, they stared into each other’s eyes, feeling one another’s breath.

            Kit made the next move, her hands grabbing onto Bucky’s belt.  He pressed his lips to hers and slid his hands under her back.  Kit’s fingers fumbled with the belt buckle, her mind not focused on the task.  She was distracted by the bulge being contained within his pants, as well as Bucky’s momentary frustration with the clasp of her bra.  When she finally got the belt undone, her hands were much swifter with the button and fly.

            Before she could go any further, Bucky won his fight against the clasp.  His face disappeared from hers, his hips moving away, but Kit was gasping as his lips, his tongue, explored the exposed skin of her breasts.  Without stopping his journey, he used his hands to reverse their earlier process along her arms, freeing her of the bra that he promptly chucked across the room.

            Bucky’s attentions moved lower as he trailed his tongue across her belly, stopping only to apply soft, small kisses to the scars she let no one see.  Kit gripped his shoulders and bit her lip.  She then found his hands with hers and brought them to her breasts, where he applied a gentle pressure.  There was something strange and wonderful about the contrast on either side.  Cold and warm.  False and real.  But both were solid, gentle, and somewhere between soft and coarse.  Soft metal, coarse flesh.

            Taking his head between her hands, Kit pulled Bucky back up to her, latching her lips onto his with a desperate need for it.  Part of her wanted to scream into him, but this would do instead.  This smothering, inability to breathe that he gave her.  It was frightening in its power.

            When she next inhaled, Kit grabbed the hem of his pants and the underwear that he wore underneath, tugging them both down over his hips at the same time.  Bucky was quicker with Kit’s belt.  With one motion that used his whole body, he swept her pants and panties over her hips and down her thighs, leaving him standing.  With both their pants dropped around their ankles and their shirts elsewhere, they could admire one another completely.  With the reading light shining down across Kit, and Bucky standing in the dark just outside its reach, neither of them had difficulty with the vision before them.  Kit’s eyes slid from the top down.  His hair was a dishevelled mess from her hands.  His dark eyes moved slightly as he studied her body in the same way that she studied his.  His chest heaved, although he wasn’t tired, not at all, this was from excitement.  And below his firm belly, was something else both firm and excited.  As her eyes returned to his face, she watched the smile, the wolfish grin, light it up.

            Bucky placed one knee on the bed beside her, and then the other, leaving his pants on the floor behind him.  Kit scooted up toward her headboard, so that she was completely on the bed, kicking off the last of her clothes.  Bucky followed her, leaning down over her, his hands planting themselves on either side of her shoulders.  She wrapped her own hands around his neck and brought her mouth up to his.  It was a soft kiss this time, less desperate, less animal, more controlled.  It meant more, and it seemed he felt it too.

            Then her hands moved downward, briefly brushing and gripping at his erection, before she finally guided him into her.  He may not have been with anyone since the late thirties, but Bucky certainly remembered what to do.  Kit rocked with him as his hips moved, filling her.  She pulled him to her and sighed into his neck.  His breathing was hot and harsh upon her ear.

            Bucky’s rhythm was slow, steady, deliberate.  Sliding her hands up his hips, Kit guided him, changed his position subtly until he was in the perfect place.  They both knew he was there when the low moan moved out from the bottom of her lungs.  Bucky captured it with his mouth.

            Their breathing grew faster, heavier, but their rhythm kept in sync.  Sweat slid from one body to the other as a prickling, pleasurable heat radiated outward.  Bucky started to get less steady as the feeling swelled.  Kit’s synchronization broke as her body began to react on its own, to shift harder.

            She was bucking beneath Bucky and the unexpected thought made her smile, nearly laugh.  Either in response to her, or perhaps somehow knowing the joke, Bucky smiled as well.  Pressed together, grin to grin, their joy combined.

            Kit reached the final point first.  A building pressure released into a series of shudders, radiating out from their point of connection.  For a moment there was no thought, just pure, delicious oblivion.  Nothing but her and him, and barely a distinction between the two.  When finally she could breathe again, she nearly couldn’t.  Bucky pressed all of him into her, onto her, his powerful frame curling inward, his muscles contracting.  Then everything let go.

            Everything stopped as Bucky lay on top of Kit, using just enough effort to keep from putting the full weight of him on her.  There was only their breathing: a rough sound, the motion of their bellies, a warm irregular breeze.

            Bucky started to chuckle and slid sideways, slipping out of her, shifting his weight onto his hip on the mattress beside her.

            “That was certainly something,” Kit sighed, trying to laugh as well but not quite having enough breath.

            Buck kissed her shoulder.  “Not bad for an old man, huh?”

            That time Kit managed a laugh.  She ran her hands across his shoulders and realized something.  “I forgot.”

            “Forgot what?” Bucky frowned, his face pressed up besides Kit’s as he traced her skin with his fingertips.

            “Just for a moment…  I forgot that my hands aren’t real.”  Kit hadn’t believed that that was possible.

            Bucky placed his hand, the prosthetic one, on her cheek and turned her face so that she was looking directly into his eyes.  “They’re real to me.”

            Kit kissed him as deeply as she knew how, but he still saw the tears in her eyes when they separated.

            “Oh come on, the line wasn’t that awful, was it?” Buck teased.

            “It was perfect.  I just…”

            “Just?”

            “This scares me.”

            Bucky held her tighter.

            “I didn’t realize how much I wanted this,” Kit elaborated.  “And…  How much I wanted you.  You, of all people.  A solider.”

            “An assassin.”

            “No,” Kit told him firmly.  “A soldier.  Someone who throws himself into danger in order to protect others, strangers even.  I never…  I never imagined this and it scares me.”  She curled into him as if he could protect her from her feelings for him, and the whole concept of that was so ludicrous she found herself laughing again.

            “So is this something that can happen again, or is that your way of trying to let me off?” Bucky eventually asked once she fell quiet again.

            “No.  I mean, no to the second part, yes to the first.  If you want this, that is.”

            “I think I need it,” he whispered at a barely audible level.

            Kit wrapped her arms around him this time and gently kissed his forehead.  “Khnel’s going to hate this,” she realized.

            Bucky laughed at that.  “Yes, she is.”

            “This is probably the exact situation she was hoping to avoid.”

            “I wonder how deep the crease between her eyebrows will get when she finds out.”

            “I don’t know.  I’ll bet neither of us will get to see it when someone else tells her tomorrow.”

            “And how will someone else know?”

            “People around here pay attention to everything.  They’ll notice you leaving my room in the morning, wearing the same clothes as you did yesterday.”

            “In the morning?”

            “If you thought you weren’t spending the night after that performance, you got another thing coming.”

            “Think.”

            “What?”

            “You said thing.  Another thing coming.  It’s think.”

            “That would make more sense, I guess.  Also, that’s a kind of random thing to bring up.”

            “I’ve noticed a lot people saying it that way.  I was wondering if you might know why.”

            “I guess it’s the song.”

            “Song?”

            “Yeah, there’s a rock song, _Another Thing Coming_.”

            “I guess I missed that one.”

            “You can add it to your future studies list.”

            Bucky laughed.  “Future studies?”

            “You were born in, what?  Nineteen-seventeen wasn’t it?  You’re in the future, buddy,” Kit teased him.

            “I suppose I am.  I’d rather study this.”  Bucky buried his face in her neck, his tongue suddenly on her throat.

            Kit giggled, it tickled.  “While the idea of a second round is mighty appealing, I think I’m too tired from the first one for that.”

            “Fair enough,” Bucky smiled, his teeth on her neck.  “Going back to this spending the night thing, are you sure both of us can fit on this tiny bed of yours?”

            “We’re fitting now.”

            “You’re trusting that I don’t roll in my sleep.”

            “I’m trusting you with a lot of things.  Although we’re going to need to move a bit.  I need a blanket covering at least part of me to sleep, and while you are many things, a blanket isn’t one of them.”

            “You know what I need to sleep these days?” Bucky said as they began the process of getting under the covers while breaking as little contact as possible.

            “What’s that?”

            “Hearing you read.”

            Kit felt embarrassed all over again.  “You had to bring that up.”

            “I did, because it’s true.  Hearing you read…  Calms me.  It calms my mind.  Besides, I want to know how the story ends.”

            “I want to know too.”

            “You didn’t keep reading after I figured out it was you?  For some reason I thought you would have.”

            “Nope, but I have the novel right here.”  Kit grabbed the book off her headboard as they finally settled together.

            “Paper.  Perfect.”  Bucky studied the cover in her hands.  “I was worried you might be reading off your tablet, or one of those electric book things.”

            “E-readers.  I’ve always preferred the feel of a real book when it comes to stories.”

            “So, flip to the right page and continue.”

            Kit opened the book and hesitated a moment before reading, just as she had the first time.  She thought it would be weird having him able to read over her shoulder if he wanted.  Once she started though, she found it to be the easiest thing in the world.  Well, the second easiest.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there are any tags you think I should add, let me know. I'm not great at tagging.

When Bucky returned to consciousness, he refused to open his eyes. There had been no nightmares last night. There had been no feeling like his first breath of the day would be his final one. He felt… comfortable. And he assumed it wouldn’t last. Something would happen when he opened his eyes. Something would change.

“Good morning.” A flutter of a kiss brushed his cheek.

“How did you know I was awake?”

“Your heart rate suddenly elevated quite a bit. What were you thinking about?”

“How I have to pee but that I didn’t want to wake you,” he lied, finally opening his eyes to look at the woman beside him. She had made him physically whole, and was now helping with the emotional damage as well. It was remarkable, but Bucky had trouble seeing it last more than a week. Still, that was an improvement over believing everything ended the next day.

“Then get up and go pee, because I’m going to need to use the toilet after you.” Kit made no move to help him extract his body from her arms and legs.

Walking barefoot across the laminate, Buck had to avoid a few articles of their scattered clothing. Once in the bathroom, he gave himself a hard look in the mirror. He still looked the same, so what did Kit see in him? She had admitted to being afraid last night. Not of him, but he understood, even If she didn’t completely yet, that she was afraid of his leaving. Of the pain he’d cause in his wake. He always left behind pain.

Bladder empty, he returned to the workshop-turned-bedroom. Kit was lying on her stomach, put propped up on her elbows as she typed away on her laptop, its screen dim to accommodate her eyes. Perhaps it was her unique eyes that saw him differently, although when he had gazed into them, he saw the same humanity he had seen in everyone else’s.

“Bathroom’s all yours,” he commented, scanning the floor for where his underwear had ended up.

Kit snapped her laptop shut and put it back on the wide headboard before sliding out of bed. To Bucky, she had a stunning body, even with the scars. He hadn’t asked about them, assuming they were related to her hands and eyes. She’d give him the details when she was ready. If she was ever ready.

As she walked by him, Kit trailed one of her hands across his chest, followed by a slap on the ass that he wasn’t expecting. The surprise forced a laugh out of him.

Although he had located his underwear, Bucky sat on the bed instead, and picked up Kit’s laptop. There was no reason not to trust her, but years of paranoia demanded that he check. Flipping up the screen, he was confronted with a log in screen containing only one account. It informed him that the single account bearing Kit’s name was running a single program. Bucky wasn’t sure he would be able to crack Kit’s password before she returned, he knew she wouldn’t chose something simple, but he clicked on the account anyway. And it signed in. She hadn’t even set a password, trusting the people of this place not to snoop. Bucky sighed and shook his head. Maybe she encrypted the important stuff.

The program that was running was an internet browser. Expanding it, Buck found himself inside Kit’s email account, looking at an unfinished reply. Checking that it had saved recently, Bucky then clicked around the rest of her account, studying bits and pieces of stuff she had both sent and received. It was all technical junk, and a few jokes that people had sent to everyone in the facility that was part of a mailing list for such things. They were all innocent in other words, and the only emails containing his name, were older ones that related to the construction of his arm.

The toilet flushed and Bucky quickly returned the laptop to the exact state in which he found it. Should he have felt bad for invading her privacy like that? Was it a breach of her trust?

“Wandering?”

“What?” Bucky looked up to find Kit watching him from the stub of a hall.

“You look like you’re wandering through your head somewhere,” Kit said, crossing the room toward him. She crawled onto the bed behind him and pulled on his shoulder, silently telling him to lie back down with her.

“Going back to sleep?” he wondered.

“Do you realize how early it is?” she mumbled into her pillow.

“It’s not that early.” The clock across the room told him so. Digital clocks were one of the unexpected things Bucky liked about the future. Silent, accurate, and easy to read, even in the dark. Some of the nights he lay awake, he watched the numbers change.

“It’s early for me,” Kit mumbled again.

“For me it’s a bit late,” Buck admitted.

Kit looked up as if not sure she believed him. “That sucks,” she decided.

“Well, you were apparently awake before me this morning.”

“And I have every intention of going back to sleep.”

Bucky stared at the ceiling, willing to just lie there while she slept. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do in this place. But Kit didn’t end up sleeping. Less than a minute later she was pressing her face against the flesh of his shoulder and smelling his skin. Bucky found it amusing. He couldn’t recall anyone smelling him before. He decided to take in her scent as well, turning his head to breathe it in off her hair. She mostly had the same scent as the room, which was metal and oil, but there also sweat and a hint of last night’s sex. It was definitely different than all the other women he knew.

Kit suddenly latched onto him like a remora.

“What are you doing?” It certainly wasn’t unpleasant.

“Science,” she stopped to say.

“You’ll have to explain that one to me.”

“Well, because you’re a super soldier, I have no idea if you can get a hickey. I intend to find out.”

“By all means, continue.”

She did more than just continue. Her hand made its way along his chest and then travelled downward. A flutter of fear momentarily grabbed Bucky, as he knew full well how strong Kit’s grip could be. Before any part of him could react in an adverse manner, however, she had taken hold of him and a rush of pleasure replaced the concern. As she stroked his cock, he quickly found himself standing to attention and letting out a deep groan. He reached across himself, under Kit’s arm, and moved his cybernetic hand between her legs. She took a sharp breath as she bit down on his shoulder. She was already wet and ready.

Bucky made to roll onto her, but she pressed his shoulder back down before it could completely leave the mattress. She then swung her leg over and eased down on to him. As she began to shift her hips, he got to watch the pleasure on her face. She liked having him inside her.

Running his hands up her thighs, he traced the curve of her hips, her sides, her ribs, finally settling on the swell of her small breasts. He couldn’t resist them. Pulling himself up, her brought his mouth to her left nipple. Teasing it with his tongue until it was hard, he then moved on to the right. Kit gasped and sighed, finally pushing Bucky back down flat. Her hands were planted on his chest as she shifted harder, moving along the full length of him. He grabbed her hips to help her pull deeper.

She was virtually silent when she came. Her back arched as she pulled in a deep breath, her motions becoming uncontrolled. Bucky had always been with loud women, even a screamer, and thought he liked it, thought he preferred it. Maybe he once did, but this, seeing and feeling her pleasure without distraction, was so much better.

Keeping hold of her hips, Bucky took more control, arching his back in order to thrust as deep and as hard as he could at the difficult angle. For just a few seconds, he could forget who he was and what he had done. He was a man enjoying the base of all pleasures with a woman. Then it all flooded out of him, and was replaced by the same old shit. In an attempt to keep the darkness at bay for just a little longer, he planted his metal hand on the small of Kit’s back, while the one of flesh moved up to the back of her neck. As he was sitting up, he pulled her down, and smashed his mouth into hers. She reciprocated in kind, her hands tightly gripping his hair. It was a little painful, but it was a good pain, one which reminded him that his suffering was no longer constant.

“Awake now?” Bucky teased her as they flopped back onto the bed.

“Oh yeah,” she panted in his ear.

They spent several seconds just taking in one another.

“Now I know you think people are already going to notice that this happened, but we probably shouldn’t make it too easy and have showers.”

“Showers?” Kit lifted her head to see his face. “Why not one shower?”

“Sounds good to me.” Bucky grabbed hold of Kit and hoisted her off the bed with him. He walked with her in his arms all the way to the bathroom, while she played with his hair. Luckily, Kit’s shower was the kind that was combined with a bathtub and was easily large enough for both of them to stand in. The light was also on a dimmer switch, so that they could set it to a level that was acceptable for both of them.

Long ago, Bucky had imagined what it would be like to shower with a woman. It wasn’t like this. With them both well sexually satisfied, it was only about cleaning, about scrubbing each other’s backs and washing each other’s hair. Kit’s bathroom was also as untraditionally feminine as the rest of her room. Her shampoos weren’t flowery, her soaps were gritty—the kind for removing ground in greases and oils—and the only item for scrubbing was a harsh wire brush meant for metal, not skin.

“What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to wash off your hands?” Bucky wondered.

“Scorch marks.”

“Scorch marks? I can’t see you being that careless with a blowtorch.”

“I wasn’t being careless, at least not then. I was careless when I was soldering and got dabs of metal on me. By the time I noticed, the blowtorch seemed like the easiest way to remove it. I had to replace some of the coating on my palms after that though. What about you? What was the hardest thing for you to scrub off?”

Metaphorical blood. “Same. Scorch marks.” As he watched Kit rinse the soap off her legs, another question came to mind. One that led to a topic he felt he should bring up despite the difficulty of it. “Have you seen my medical file?”

“Only small parts as they pertain to your arm. Neither Khnel nor Yen would ever break doctor-patient confidentiality. Why?”

“Well, during my future studies, as you so call them, I came across how condoms are important these days-”

“Oh, I don’t have any STIs, so you’re okay, and I figured you’d know and have said something if you-”

“I’m not talking about STIs.” This was suddenly getting a lot more awkward than Bucky had intended. “I’m talking about the problem that can show up nine months later.”

“Well-”

“Let me finish. I just thought I should tell you that you don’t have to worry. Either something in the serum I was given or the constant freezing has left me sterile.”

Kit laughed. Bucky didn’t know what that meant.

“Sorry,” she said, her cyber eyes probably picking up a micro expression on his face. “It’s just… I was going to tell _you_ not to worry.” Kit took his hands and placed them over the scars that were low on her belly. “The shrapnel destroyed my ovaries. No eggs, means that I can’t have kids either.” She was oddly calm about it. Buck understood that a lot of women would be devastated by such news.

“Do you want kids?”

Kit shrugged. “Not really. I’ve always thought I would make a terrible mother, if I’m being honest. What about you?”

“Anything in me that might have made me a good dad, has long since been removed.” That was the first time he had vocalized that self-realization, and it was like discovering it all over again.

Kit wrapped her arms around him and held him tight, letting him hide his face from her. He didn’t cry. He didn’t think he could anymore, that it was all out of him after Khnel’s brain debugging. But he didn’t let himself fall into his default rigid stance, of putting on a hard shell. Khnel had told him to try letting the sadness run its course, so he did. Had he been alone, he might have collapsed, but his desire to keep from dragging Kit down with him kept the strength in his legs.

“So shrapnel, huh?” he finally said when he was able.

“Yeah, shrapnel.” Kit stepped back from him.

“Do I get to hear the rest of that story?”

“You will, but not today, okay?”

“Whenever… _if_ ever you want to tell it, I’ll listen.”

“I know you will.”

With another minute of rinsing, the shower was complete so they both stepped out. Kit only had two towels so they each got one a piece.

“Have you ever considered cutting your hair?” Kit asked as Bucky scrubbed at it.

He honestly hadn’t considered it. “Should I?”

Kit shrugged. “It’s up to you. I’ve seen some pictures of you from the war with short hair. You manage to look good with both, although I’m putting in a formal request that you don’t grow it much longer.”

Bucky would have to think about it. It was something tied to the self, which he continued to struggle with. Maybe thinking about it would help him, give him something simple to approach.

He lingered in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet lid, watching Kit dry her hair. While not much longer than Bucky’s currently was, she took the time to point a hairdryer at it. He noticed how careful she was when running her fingers instead of the hairbrush through her hair. If he had to guess, he would say that she had gotten her hair stuck between where the plates joined at least once in the past. Or maybe she was just always gentle with her hair, despite not being very gentle with his.

“You’re staring,” Kit pointed out, meeting his eyes in the mirror.

“Am I not allowed to?”

Her answer was a smile.

They exited the bathroom together, but dressed separately. Bucky had to locate his clothes around the bedroom, the shirt proving the most difficult as it had ended up under the workbench, while Kit went into her closet to put on something clean. When she returned, she was in her usual cargos—although these ones were olive green—and another thin, longsleeved shirt with a design or logo he didn’t recognize. Kit gathered her clothes and briefly disappeared back into the closet with them while Bucky put on his socks and boots. Khnel had been right about being barefoot helping to ground him, but his feet still got cold and he wasn’t about to go barefoot in a public space.

“So are we supposed to leave separately or something? If you don’t want to make it too easy for people,” Kit wondered as she sat down on the edge of her bed and picked up her laptop. She didn’t notice that he had touched it.

“I don’t know,” Bucky shrugged. “What are your plans for the day?”

“I have some emails I have to finish replying to, but then I thought breakfast.” She tapped away on the keyboard, quickly becoming absorbed in what she was doing.

“Well, I’m going to head back to my room for some fresher clothes. You’re going to the cafeteria, right? I can meet you there.” Bucky had never eaten anything but dinner with Kit.

“Yeah, that’d be great.” Kit appeared more focused on her emails than on what Bucky was saying.

When he got up to leave though, she looked up and gave him a smile. For a moment, she seemed ready to say something, but then must have decided against it and turned back to her laptop. Bucky didn’t have anything to say either, nothing that didn’t come across as awkward in his mind, so he just left.

There was no one currently in the common area outside Kit’s space. Most of the scientists and researchers and what not were probably still asleep, having stayed up late with their studies. Those that did keep a reasonable sleep cycle and were up, were probably eating breakfast or exercising. Being a chronic early riser, Bucky visually knew who virtually all the others were.

The first person Buck saw that morning, other than Kit, was a woman in a white lab coat, hunched over a microscope in one of the labs off the common area. He had no way of knowing what she was working on, but he immediately sympathized with the lab rats scurrying about their cages in one corner of the space. They were likely unwilling participants.

That was the hardest part about being here. Not just the daily confrontations with scientific experimentation, which was bad enough, but there was the not knowing what they were actually doing on top of that. What was that woman looking at? What was her end goal?

As the woman began to stand upright, freeing her eyes of the eyepieces, Bucky hurriedly moved on. He liked Kit’s space because it was basically a garage, but he wasn’t fond of having to walk by the neighbouring labs to get there.

He tried to focus on only what lay ahead of him as he walked, but a constant awareness of his surroundings was so ingrained, that he couldn’t _not_ pay attention to everything. He mentally noted every change from when he had last passed through the area. Some labs that usually remained visible at night—when there wasn’t a glass reboot—were still opaque this morning. Others which were normally concealed, were now visible. A couple were always out of sight, and the remaining few had their glass transparent every time Bucky walked past, although whether the lights were on or off tended to change.

Entering the residential area was better for his agitation, but he continued to take in just as much detail. The doors mostly remained closed, but a few were open a crack or all the way, giving Bucky glimpses of the lives lived within. There were those who were frugal, and those who were hoarding packrats. There were signs of spiritualists, stereotypical nerds, jock types, tech junkies, and others. Even the doors to closed rooms gave Bucky something to study. Dented and dirty doorknobs or handles, posters stuck to the outer surface of the wood, whiteboards for leaving notes, personal signage. This dorm-like style of living presented Buck with an interesting slice of life to watch. He guessed it was why Dr. Khnel had set him up here, so that he could ease back into a life with people in a more controlled environment than what the real world was.

Finally reaching his own quarters, Bucky paused to look at the chair in the nook beside his door. He had never sat in it before. Looking down both hallways, he confirmed he was alone and decided that now was as good a time as any. He slumped into the overstuffed chair, rubbing his hands along the fabric of the armrests. It was just like the one in his room, comfortable, making it easy to imagine Kit here all those nights he had listened to her voice drifting through the ventilation. He wondered if she curled up on the chair or put her feet up on the coffee table. Maybe he’d ask. That was something he could do. Or probably could do. This thing with Kit was strange. He didn’t know what it was.

Down one of the halls, a door clicked open. Bucky left the chair and pulled out the key to his room in one motion, quickly opening the door and ducking inside. It was frustrating that his door could only be locked from the outside, but at least he could do that. Everything was exactly where he had left it, including his various small setups meant to detect if someone had poked around his space in his absence. Khnel was keeping her promise to allow him the privacy of his room, although it wasn’t like he had anything to hide, considering he still lived a Spartan existence.

Moving to his dresser, he pulled out clean clothes, avoiding the bright colours that had slowly made their way to the bottom of the drawers. He didn’t care what Khnel said, he was going to keep wearing the clothes that would make him stand out the least. He liked them. They were comfortable, and not just physically. Maybe if he washed the other clothes enough times they would fade to a more appealing shade.

After putting on the fresh attire and dumping the stuff that needed washing into the hamper, Bucky found he wasn’t ready to leave his room just yet. He wasn’t ready to head back out into a social space. Instead, he sat on the side of his bed and watched the jungle leaves and mists move in the breeze. He had never been sent to a jungle for a mission before, not one like the wilds outside his window. There were no memories to be triggered by the dark greens and browns, with its grey-blue skies overhead. The canopy was like the ocean of a different world. Maybe he’d ask Thor if one like that existed somewhere if he ever got the chance to meet him.

Stevie knew a Norse God and never thought to mention it. Then again, it’s not like there had been a good moment to bring it up. What a strange time Bucky found himself in. Aliens and artificial intelligences and humans with magical powers. It got overwhelming during the quiet moments, when he had time to think.

Could it be that what Bucky had created with Kit was just a distraction? Was he using her to keep his mind off himself? Did he actually care about her the way he thought he did when he was around her, or was that just another automatic defence system at work?

His mind ricocheted between his thoughts and study of the jungle. He spent so long doing this, that eventually there was a knock at the door. He checked the time, thinking he had forgotten an appointment with Dr. Khnel and saw that a couple of hours had passed while he did nothing.

“What?” he called out, not feeling up to using niceties.

“It’s me,” Kit called back.

Getting off the bed, he walked over to his door and opened it. Kit was there with a tray of food, the eyebrows just visible over her sunglasses pinched with concern.

“You never showed up for breakfast, so I thought I’d bring you some.” She offered forth the tray.

“Sorry,” Bucky mumbled, remembering that he had said he’d meet her in the cafeteria. “Come in.”

When he stepped aside, he watched her hesitate. Was she afraid of him? Had he put too much force into his voice when he responded to her knock? Was it something else? But she did step through the door and carried the food to the small table.

“You look like a meat eater so I brought you lots of bacon and turkey sausages. They made pancakes today, so I brought two of those, as well as some toast. No eggs because I have no idea how you like your eggs. Oh, and a bit of fruit, plus water to drink.” The tray contained all she said it did, plus utensils and tiny packets of syrups and jams.

“Thank you, you didn’t need to bring me all this.”

“Well, I wanted to.” She sat at the table and popped a blueberry into her mouth.

Bucky sat across from her and looked over the meal, trying to decide what to have first.

“So what kind of eggs _do_ you like?” Kit asked.

“Scrambled. With peppers if possible.”

“Ooo, fancy,” she teased him.

She watched him as he started with one of the sausages, cutting off and eating a piece before deciding he wanted to put some syrup on it.

“So is it me or you?” Kit asked next, the playful tone gone from her voice again.

“Pardon?”

“Why you didn’t come to breakfast. Is it me, or is something up with you?”

“Oh. Me. I just didn’t feel up to being around people and I got lost in thought.” His appetite left with the admission, but he continued to eat anyway. “I guess I’ve just gotten used to spending my mornings alone.”

“Okay.” She looked down at her hands and then glanced at the door. “Do you want me to go?”

“No. No, you can stay if you want. You’re different. Than other people. To me.” He didn’t know how to say what he meant. And he didn’t like that he couldn’t see her eyes, just his own reflection staring back at him. In the dimness of her room, he had always been able to see them. He decided to do something a little selfish then. He reached forward and removed the glasses from her face. Kit blinked rapidly a couple of times, squinted, and then finally relaxed her face. It seemed she still reacted normally to sudden, bright light, but without the pain that went with it, she could keep from constantly squinting.

“I told you I like your eyes.”

“You said they’re beautiful,” she blushed.

“Because they are. They’re different. Unique. And, yes, beautiful. They’re you.”

Her face turned completely red to the point where she felt she had to look away. She wasn’t used to complements. That didn’t seem right to Bucky. He wondered if that had always been true or just something that developed after her ‘accident’ or whatever it was.

“Have you tried bananas recently?” she changed topics. “I hear they’re different from what they were in the forties.”

“I’m aware. Who do you think helped spread the banana plague?”

Her eyebrows shot toward her hairline.

“I’m sorry, that was a joke.” _A bad one,_ he thought as he smiled and hung his head. He went back to picking at his meal. Things weren’t nearly this awkward last night, or even this morning. What had happened? He began thinking is what.

“We need to get something out of the air,” Kit said.

“Yeah? And what’s that?”

“What are we? I mean, to each other. Are we dating? Are we friends with benefits?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky shrugged. “Is there something you want to be?”

“I want to be close to you, close with you.”

“And I’m fucking that up,” he assumed.

“No. Well, maybe, but it’s not entirely you. It’s me too. I… don’t know how to do this. I don’t really know what being close with someone even really means, I just know that I want it with you. Ug, what do I mean?”

“I think you’re trying to tell me you want something good. I’m not sure that’s me.”

“It’s you,” she sounded angry that he would think otherwise. “What do _you_ want?”

“I don’t know. I barely know what I want to do each hour of each day, let alone out of life.”

“Whoa there, life’s a little too big to be thinking about. I’m talking about what I want right now.”

“Right this minute, I want this.” Bucky got out of his seat in order to lean over and kiss her.

When he broke away in order to sit back down, she smiled at him. “You taste like syrup.”

“I’m also very good at diversion tactics,” he sighed.

“That’s fine. We’ll try to take things a step at a time, I guess.”

“What’s the first step?”

“My guess? How public do we make this? Are public displays of affection allowed? Can we hold hands out there, or no? Do we try to pretend we barely know each other?”

“I don’t like that last idea.”

“Good, because I don’t either. By the way, Yen already knows.”

“Knows? About last night? Did you tell him?”

“He seemed to know the moment he saw me, I don’t know how. But yeah, I ended up telling him because he asked me. He’s my best friend, I tell him things.”

“Hey, I don’t have a problem with that. I like the doc. Do you know if Khnel knows?”

“Assume she does.”

“Then there’s no point in hiding anything. We’ll just do what we feel comfortable with.”

“Are relationships always this confusing at the start?”

“I wouldn’t know. Things were different in the thirties, and I’m not sure I was ever in what you could consider a relationship with any of the girls I was with.”

“I haven’t been in a relationship with a guy since high school, and that only lasted two months.”

“Yeah? What was his name?”

“Jack Madison. Hottest guy in school.”

“Did you put out?”

“Damn straight I did,” she laughed. “Did you miss the part about him being the hottest guy in school? It’s probably the only reason it lasted as long as it did.”

“Who broke up with whom?”

“He broke up with me. It hurt, but I realized later it was because I was smarter than him.”

“That’s a stupid reason to break up with someone.”

Kit shrugged. “It was high school. Also, I’m pretty sure his friends were making fun of him since I was doing better than him in auto shop class. I mean, I did better than everyone in that class, but I guess it’s different when it’s your girlfriend.”

“Want me to find this Jack Madison guy? Talk some sense into him?” Bucky drummed his metal fingers on the table and grinned.

Kit laughed. “Thank you for the offer, but no. I looked him up once. He works as a garbage collector, got divorced, and, at the time I checked, was currently dating a stripper. She has a kid from a previous relationship. They looked happy, so good for them I guess.”

“Sounds like you more than looked him up.”

“His Facebook had no privacy settings, so it was actually super easy.”

“I don’t understand social media,” Bucky admitted.

“Probably for the best.” Kit stole some more fruit.

“So what do you have planned for the rest of the day?”

“Well, it’s a weekday, so it’s kind of expected that I work. I’ve been looking into developing a better landing system for the new VTOL plane, something that can withstand a harder impact.”

“Sounds useful.”

“Do you have any plans?”

“Nope. I have an appointment with Dr. Khnel this afternoon, but otherwise my schedule is clear.”

“You’re welcome to hang out with me if you want, but it’ll be pretty boring since I shouldn’t let you distract me.”

“Thanks, but I’ll find something to occupy myself. Khnel says I need to find things that interest me.”

“Well we’re almost done the book I’ve been reading. You could go to the library and find something for us to follow it up with.”

“You’ll keep reading to me?”

“If you want me to. I kinda like it.”

“Then maybe I’ll do that.”

Kit got up and walked around the table to him. She hugged his head, which was unexpected, and planted a kiss on top of it. Resting her chin on him, she continued to stand like that for several seconds.

“Are you leaving or am I expected to keep eating like this?” Bucky eventually asked.

Kit kissed his head again and then released it. Before she could get away, Bucky pulled her in to plant one on her lips again.

“Still syrupy,” she commented, slipping away toward the door. She put her sunglasses back on as she walked.

“I’ll come find you later,” Bucky said as she opened the door.

“Or I’ll find you, whichever happens first,” Kit turned and smiled at him, then disappeared.

When Bucky finished eating, he debated whether he wanted to return the dishes to the kitchen right away or not. He decided not to, and instead went through a simple workout: sit ups, push ups, and various stretches. Nothing too intense that would require another shower. When he was done, he felt more up to leaving his room, so he returned his dishes to the cafeteria, and headed to where his memories told him the library was based on Khnel’s tour.

During the tour, Bucky hadn’t gone inside the library and didn’t know what he had expected it to look like, but it wasn’t like what he had found. The place was the same grey as his room, with the shelves made of flat, minimalist lines. The ceiling was low, like a basement, even though it was two levels up from his room. There were no windows, but plenty of tables, chairs, and fluorescent lighting. Bucky spotted only one other person as he moved through the labyrinth of stacks; an overweight man was comparing two thick volumes near the evolution section. Bucky chose not to disturb him and searched for the fiction books on his own. The place was way bigger than it had first seemed, the orderly lines heading deep into the facility being broken up by shelves occasionally running perpendicular. It meant that Bucky could stand in a row, and see nothing but colourful book spines among the grey all around him.

It turned out that the fiction section was broken up into smaller categories and was bigger than Bucky had anticipated. He was right to think that various science books filled most of the library, but he had assumed that would mean the fiction section would be relatively small in order to leave space. He had been wrong.

“Where the hell do I start?” Buck muttered to himself.

He read the various categories, written in a darker grey on the stacks’ sides, attempting to mentally cross off ones that weren’t interesting. There were romances and thrillers, historical settings and apocalypses, fantasy epics and small slices of life. There was just too much. Too much choice. Bucky got lost among the stacks, no longer knowing what section he was in. He had read the backs of so many books, and nearly all of them had sounded interesting to some degree. His natural sense of direction told him which way the exit was, but he realized he wouldn’t be able to retrace his exact steps if he had to.

A feeling of entrapment came over him. He didn’t want to be there anymore, but he also didn’t want his emotions to rule him. Bucky took a deep breath. He had to remain calm. There was no real danger here.

He grabbed a book off the nearest shelf, some sort of short story collection by a single author, and began walking back toward the exit. His heart rate elevated as he moved between rows of books he hadn’t walked through before. Was he _sure_ he was headed in the right direction? Was it possible he had gotten turned around somehow and was now actually just walking deeper into the library? No, he was fine. The sections were the same. The rows may be different, but the sections were the same. Eventually, Bucky even passed the fat man, still studying the same two volumes. When the exit finally came into view, he breathed a sigh of relief and hurried out the door. A massive window greeted him in the hall just outside. Bucky went straight to it, resting his forehead against the thick glass. He tapped his metal fingers against it, reassuring himself that, if he really wanted to, he could break through it with a few solid blows. But he didn’t need to do that. More importantly, he didn’t _want_ to.

“Bucky?”

Buck turned to find Khnel walking down the hall toward him. “Hello, Dr. Khnel.”

“What are you doing up here?” she asked, stepping up alongside him.

“Just getting a book to read.” He briefly held it up.

“Did you find it okay? Normally the library can be tapped into with a tablet or phone, which then guides you where you would like to go. It’s a bit of a maze otherwise.”

“I’ll remember that for next time. Is there anything I should be doing to check this book out?”

“No, they’re all coded, tagged, and tracked by computers. When you return it, just slide it through that slot over there. A library tech will put it back where it belongs. What book did you pick?”

“That’s not important.” Bucky shoved the paperback into one of his wide side pockets.

“Would you like to have our session early today?”

“Would you?”

“I would like to talk about the relationship I hear you’ve started up with Kit.”

Bucky grinned. So she did know already.

“And perhaps about whatever you may have felt in the library.”

She definitely hadn’t been in the hallway when he exited, so she must have guessed he had been feeling off based on his stance by the window. An educated guess, but still a guess. She was very good at that.

“All right, Dr. Khnel, we’ll have a session now. Lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been another four chapters, so here's my obligatory reminder to please consider checking out my [Amazon page](https://www.amazon.com/Kristal-Stittle/e/B006NL1X4W)
> 
> Don't want to look at my books? Maybe you'll like my Redbubble art! Especially [this one](http://www.redbubble.com/people/kristalstittle/works/14905978-winter-cap-ying-yang)


	13. Chapter 13

Kit was getting frustrated with this landing gear problem.  She knew there was a way to improve it, to make it stronger, but the implementation kept escaping her.  It didn’t help that she was better at building actual things as opposed to making computer simulations.  M’Tala was helping her, running most of the sims and sending her the results, but she felt the need to build little models, to see the design in the real world.  She had a bunch of samples of all the metal she was allowed to use in order to play with them, experimenting with mixtures and temperature changes.  She also had little piles of cheaper material to cut up and shape.  The main problem was the lifting and lowering mechanism.  Currently Wakada’s VTOLs used hydraulics, which were always snapping in the hard landing simulations.  Maybe if she-

            Kit squeaked with fright when Bucky wrapped his arms around her.  She hadn’t heard him come in.

            “How goes the work?” he asked, resting his chin on her head.

            “You startled the hell out of me.”  Her heart was racing.

            “I didn’t exactly sneak in, you were just so focused on whatever it is you’re doing.”

            “I’m getting annoyed, is what.  So far, I’ve only discovered what works equally well, or worse, than the current method.”

            “You should take a break and have some dinner.”  Bucky spun her around in her chair so that she could see the food he had brought and placed on the couch.  It smelled divine, and Kit realized that she was starving.

            “I guess I could have some.”  She titled her head back and kissed the first part of his face that she could reach: his chin.

            “Go sit on the couch, I have something else as well.”

            “A surprise?”

            “Not really.  Just go sit.”

            Kit got up from her chair and moved over to the couch.  There was enough food for both of them resting on the middle cushion, a classic American meal consisting of burgers and fries.  She watched as Bucky moved the straight backed chair so that it faced the couch, then propped up her tablet on it and plugged in a pair of small but decent speakers.

            “What are we watching?” she wondered, popping a fry into her mouth.  It was so greasy and salty and good.

            “A couple of people have been recommending me movies that weren’t on your list.  This is one of them, and I thought, why not watch it together?”  Once Buck got the film going, he quickly stepped back to sit on the opposite end of the couch.

            It only took a few seconds for Kit to recognize the film.  She laughed.  “ _Titanic_?  Really?”

            “It’s about an event that I know about, and I’m told it’s really good.”  Bucky picked up one of the burgers and took a huge bite out of it.

            “You know it’s mostly a love story, right?”

            Bucky shrugged.  “Maybe I like love stories.  Do you not like this movie?”

            “No, it’s good, it’s just not what I imagined you picking.”

            “Okay, well shh, I’m trying to listen.”

            Kit stifled her next laugh and picked up one of the burgers.  It had been quite a while since she had last seen _Titanic_ and found herself quickly drawn in.  The two of them ate their dinner, their fingers bumping into each other whenever they reached for the pile of shared fries at the same time.  Kit was done eating first, and curled her feet under her.  When Bucky noticed, he lifted the plate, slid himself into the middle seat, and then put the plate down on his other side allowing Kit to rest her head on his shoulder.

            “ _Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls,_ ” Rose spoke from the tablet.

            “Oh, so this is what that’s from!” Bucky realized.

            “Do I want to know the circumstances in which you heard that line?”

            “I heard some teenagers making jokes when I was on my own, and I had no idea what half of what they were saying even meant.”

            “Don’t worry, _most_ people don’t understand half of what teenagers are talking about.”

            “Hey look, boobs,” he commented the moment the scene started.

            Kit had no hope of stifling that laugh.  From then until the scene where the ship started sinking, there was no hope of seriousness between Kit and Bucky.  Every chance one of them could find to make a joke, they did.  But then the ship started to go down and Bucky went quiet.

            “You okay?” Kit asked him.

            “Yeah, I’m just thinking about how this actually happened.  It was just a few years before I was born, and I remember one of my teachers telling us about it.  A lot of people died.”

            “Yeah.”  Kit snuggled into his side, pulling the arm he had draped over her shoulder more tightly around herself.

            They watched the end of the movie in silence.

            “That _was_ a really good movie,” Bucky commented as the credits rolled.  “You know, for a tragic love story.”

            “So you _don’t_ like love story stuff,” Kit said triumphantly, sitting up to match his grin.

            “Yeah, I prefer the action stuff.”

            “You know what I prefer…”  Kit ran her hand along his inner thigh.

            “You know your room is still exposed to the communal area,” Bucky gestured to the glass wall with his head.  It wasn’t opaque

            “That’s easy to fix.”  Kit slid off the couch, intending to hide them from the world with a few quick button presses on her tablet.

            “Khnel knows, by the way,” Bucky said, instantly killing the mood by invoking her name.

            Kit sighed and climbed back onto the couch, leaving the glass the way it was.  “What did she have to say?”

            “That she thinks we both need to tread carefully.  That we could be lighting the fuse to a bomb that’ll blow up in both our faces.”

            “She thinks we’ll break up.”

            “That’s the sense I got, although she didn’t say it outright.”

            “Maybe we will, and maybe we won’t, but that’s for us to find out.”  Kit wrapped her arm around Bucky’s stomach and nuzzled into his neck.  She was afraid that Khnel was right, but she didn’t want to be thinking about that now.  She wanted to enjoy the present without worrying about the future.  It wasn’t her strong suit.

            “You up for another movie?” Bucky asked.

            “Sure, but I get to pick this time.”

            “Pick something I haven’t seen.”

            “Have you seen _Liar Liar_?”  Kit once again slid back down to the floor and grabbed the tablet off the chair.

            “Never even heard of it.”

            “Perfect.  I think it’s hilarious.”

            Turned out that Bucky thought it was hilarious too.  Kit had never heard him laugh so much in such a short period of time, and it made her enjoy the movie even more.  She also noticed a couple of people look in as they walked by, wondering what was going on.  She didn’t care, and if Bucky noticed, he didn’t either.

            “That was a good choice,” Bucky told her afterward, still chuckling as he remembered scenes from the movie.

            “I’m glad you liked it.”  She kissed his cheek.

            He turned his head to kiss her lips.  It started as a soft, simple peck, but quickly turned deeper.

            “Okay, _now_ I’m changing the glass.”

            Bucky said nothing off-putting this time, and the rest of the facility faded from sight.  Kit crawled back over to Bucky, and planted herself between his knees.  She slithered up his body, running her hands along him.  He was smiling when she finally pressed her lips to his.  His hands found her ass, and then ran up her back the same way hers had run up his chest.  He cradled her head as their tongues clashed.  Kit broke away, took his hands, and placed them along the back of the couch.  Bucky cocked his head, his expression an unasked question.  Kit answered with an impish grin.  Sliding back down his body, Kit then nimbly unbuckled his belt, undid the button, and pulled down the fly.  Reaching a hand inside, she teased free Bucky’s quickly stiffening cock.  In response to her touch, he moaned and slumped deeper into the couch.

            Kit lowered her face to Buck’s lap and caressed the shaft of him with her lips.  Her tongue darted out a few times, and then she took the whole of him into her mouth.  She tasted a completely different part of him.

            Bucky moaned, a sound from deep within him.  Kit lifted her eyes and watched as she licked up his length.  His hands tightened on the back of the couch producing the sound of groaning wood beneath the old fabric, as his eyes squeezed shut and mouth hung open.  She kissed his tip, then drew him back inside, sliding slowly toward his base.

            When she drew upward again, Bucky grabbed the back of her head with his right hand.  She intended to keep on, but he pulled her up.

            “I need you now,” he rasped, his voice low and urgent.

            He moved to get up, hoisting Kit off the floor in the process with his left arm.  She had intended to continue to completion, but he was fast, manipulating Kit with ease.  She was so surprised, she wasn’t sure how he got her pants off.  She suspected he may have broken her belt, but was too preoccupied to dwell on it.  Bucky thumped her down on her workbench, spread her knees, and thrust his way in.

            Kit gasped, not quite ready for it, but loving it all the same.  This wasn’t the gentle Bucky she had had last night.  He was obviously still holding back because he could really hurt her if he didn’t, but he was dancing on the line.

            Buck held her hips in place as he thrust, Kit’s shoulders pressing into the cupboards.  She grabbed his shoulders, the only thing she could think to hold on to.  He breathed hard into her ear as he slid in and out, pleasure bordering on pain.  Kit breathed with him, trying to grip his hips with her knees, but mostly just having to ride through it.

            Her orgasm hit her like thunder.  She bit down on Bucky’s shoulder, the one made of flesh.  She bit hard.  Bucky’s only acknowledgement was a louder grunt and a second of lost rhythm.

            He pressed deep and hard, filling her until he couldn’t anymore.  His body spasmed and Kit was certain she’d have bruises along her shoulder blades in the morning.  Perhaps other places as well.

Even when done, he continued to thrust a few times until he was too withered and weak.

            “I’m sorry,” he panted, as Kit released her jaw. She had left deep impressions but hadn’t managed to draw blood from his tough skin.

            “No.”  She grabbed his hips and kept him in place when he attempted to pull away.  “That was fine.”

            “I think I hurt you.”  He couldn’t meet her eyes.

            “Maybe a little, but it wasn’t a bad pain.”  She swept his hair back from his face.  “Maybe not something I’d want every time, but it was just fine for tonight.  Nothing wrong with a little bit pain every now and again.”

            He finally looked up.  She imagined he saw a sweaty, exhausted mess.

            “You’re sure you’re okay?”

            “I promise, I would let you know if I weren’t.”  Kit leaned forward and kissed him, leaning her upper weight into it.  Buck wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

            “I picked a new book,” he said when they next separated.

            “Yeah?  A good one?”

            “I have no idea.  It’s a collection of short stories.”

            “We gotta finish the one we’re currently reading first.”

            “Mhmm.”  Bucky rested his forehead against hers, their eyes so close it was impossible to focus correctly.

            “I just realized the door isn’t locked.”

            “It isn’t?”  Bucky leaned back.

            “No.  Anyone could just walk in here right now.”

            “They’d see my bare ass if they did.”

            “Yup.”

            “I guess I should move, huh?”

            “Or at least pull your pants back up.”  They had fallen around his ankles during their activities.

            Bucky took a step back to do so.  He then pulled Kit’s pants up for her, caressing her legs, and then lifting her with one arm in order to get the fabric over her hips.  “Sorry about your belt.”  He pulled it free of the loops, revealing the break in the old leather.

            Kit shrugged.  “It wasn’t a great one anyway.  I have others that are better.”

            Bucky continued to stand between Kit’s knees while she sat on her worktable, both with their arms around each other.

            “Are you going to stay here tonight, or are you going back to your room?” she asked.

            “I’d like to stay here, if it’s all right.”

            “I don’t have a problem with it.  Fair warning, my pajamas are not the sexy kind.”

            “I don’t even have pajamas.”

            “What do you sleep in?”

            “My clothes, mostly.”

            “Seriously?”

            “I’ve always had to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice, and I guess I just got used to it.”

            “Well, whatever you’re comfortable with.”

            “I’m comfortable with you.”

            Kit laughed.  “Again with the overly perfect lines.”

            “What can I say?  You bring out the cheese in me.”

            “Makes me wonder what you’ve been watching before _Titanic_ that you haven’t talked to me about.”

            “I watched _Casablanca_ one night when I couldn’t sleep.”

            “Yeah?  There are people who claim it’s the greatest movie ever made.”

            “Yen is one of those people.”

            Kit laughed, for that was exactly who she was thinking of.

            “I had seen it before.  I actually saw it for the first time in a theatre.  Sort of.  It was before I got shipped off.  I wasn’t paying much attention though, the girl beside me was way too pretty.”

            “Prettier than me?”  Kit made sure to use a tone of voice that would let Bucky know she didn’t really care.  Why would she care?  That woman was likely long dead now, and Kit was the one currently with Bucky.

            Bucky shrugged.  “Certainly different than you.  Come to think of it, she was the last girl I had ever been in bed with before you.”

            “I am certainly not sorry about ending your streak.”

            “She definitely didn’t have your eyes.”

            There he went complimenting her eyes again.  She never knew what to do or say when he said things like that.  Not only was it a compliment of her appearance, but her work as well, even if they weren’t totally right yet.  Kit ended up blushing and turning her face away.  She spotted what she had been working on earlier, farther down the desk.  If it weren’t for Bucky, she’d still be at it, having only taken a brief break for dinner.

            “No, no.  No more work for you today.”  Bucky had picked up on her wandering train of thought.  He slid her off the worktable, placing her on her feet.  “Your only option right now is bed.  You woke up early today, remember?”

            The moment Bucky mentioned sleep, Kit found herself unable to hold back a yawn.

            “See?  You’re exhausted.”

            “And it’s entirely your fault.”  She patted his cheek.  “I’m guessing you’ll need to borrow my toothbrush?”

            “I’m pretty rough on toothbrushes, I don’t think you’ll want me using yours.”

            “Well, I didn’t want to say anything, but you had some pretty gnarly breath this morning.”  Kit was certain that she had as well since forgetting to brush her teeth the night before.  More important things had been happening.

            “Why don’t I grab my toothbrush from my room and bring it back here?”

            “Yeah?”

            “It’ll only take like five minutes.”

            “Just don’t go getting lost on the way.”

            “It’s kinda hard to get lost between here and there,” Bucky grinned.

            “I meant up here,” Kit tapped his forehead.

            “I’ll try.”

            “Take longer than those five minutes and I’m coming after you.”

            “Don’t tempt me.”  Bucky crossed the room and opened the door, but paused.  Did he have something else to say, or was he hesitating for some reason?  But then he left without a word.

            Kit took the time to clean herself up and change into her pajamas, which consisted of an old, tattered T-shirt that was several sizes too large, and flannel pajama pants.  Despite what Bucky had said, she ended up hovering over her work, hoping a thought would come to her.

            “It’s been seven minutes, I see what’s more important to you,” Bucky said as he came back into the room to find her standing there.  He had brought not only his toothbrush, but it appeared a stick of deodorant, some clean undies, and a fresh shirt as well.

            “Technically, you’re also my work,” she told him, pointing to his arm.

            “I’m trying to decide if I like that or not.”  He stepped up to her, wrapping his arms around her waist.  “And I don’t know what you’re talking about, these pajamas are sexy as hell.”

            “Ha!”

            “I mean come on, you’re wearing them.”

            “Oh god, please stop.”  Kit hid her face against his chest.

            “Finding out that you don’t know what to do with a compliment has been one of my favourite discoveries.”

            “I’m going to go brush my teeth.”

            “Did you forget I went to get my toothbrush?  I have the perfect excuse to follow you.”

            Bucky didn’t so much follow Kit as walk with her.  He kept his hands around her middle after she had turned around, forcing them both to shuffle along in an amusing penguin walk that had Kit laughing by the time they reached the bathroom.  It was strange to have someone else in the bathroom with her while she brushed her teeth.  She wondered if it was the same for Bucky, or if his years in the army had left him immune to such oddities.  Whenever she remembered that Bucky was in a war her grandfathers had fought in, she wondered how she found herself in this situation.

            “All right, out.  I gotta pee,” Kit insisted once they had both finished brushing.

            “I was literally inside you probably less than half an hour ago.”

            “And yet I’m still a shy pee’r.  Out.”

            “All right, I’m going.  I’m going.”  Bucky allowed himself to be shooed from the bathroom.

            Kit took her time on the toilet.  She was still a little sore, and was suddenly thinking about her family.  All her grandparents had passed, but she had been close with them.  They were neighbours, and she had been raised by them and her mother between those two houses after her father had died when she was a baby, and her mom couldn’t do it alone.  Her favourite was Grandma Mimi, who had worked in Grandpa Joe’s family garage while he was off flying bombers.  Mimi G had always been Kit’s number one supporter, even more so than her mom, who clearly wasn’t ready for the job.  Kit didn’t even know where her mom was right now.  Maybe she should find out.

            Finally exiting the bathroom, Kit found Bucky lying on her bed.  He had taken off his shirt and folded it neatly with his socks, placing them on the chair that he had moved next to her bed, along with the clean clothes he had brought.  His belt lay curled on top, looped around the items from his pockets: a small rubber ball, a pen, a paperback, and a pistol.

            “Do I gotta worry about a smell?”  Bucky looked up from Kit’s tablet that he had been fidgeting with.  “You were in there awhile,” he joked.

            “No, you’re good.  You’re not the only one who can get lost inside their head.”

            “You okay?”  He sat up and placed the tablet on its charger.

            “Just thinking about the past is all.”  Kit climbed into bed, happily sinking into the mattress and pillows while Bucky went to the bathroom.  Her pillows smelled like him.

            “Did you see the book I picked?” Bucky asked when he came back, grabbing it off the chair as he passed.

            “I was a bit distracted by the gun.”

            “Right.  Khnel gave that to me.  There’s no bullets in it.”  He got into bed beside Kit and curled up around her.

            “Your therapist gave you a gun with no bullets?”

            “I know, it’s weird, but I like having it on me.”

            “Well, you are a soldier.”

            “What do you think of the book?” Bucky changed topics, placing the paperback in Kit’s hand.

            “Never read it.  I’ve heard of the author though.  Apparently he can write some pretty brutal horror stuff.”

            “Yeah?  Might be interesting then.”

            “Huh.  Did you notice that while the cover of this one is in English, the inside is actually written in Wakandan?”

            “I did not.  Can you read it?”

            “Of course.”

            “Good.  I’ve been trying to learn Wakandan.  It’ll help me.”

            “We’re finishing this one first.”  Kit reached up to the headboard and swapped the two books.

            “Obviously.  I think we’re going to finish it either tonight or tomorrow.”

            Bucky turned out to be right, they finished it that night, the ending coming quicker than they imagined due to a large preview for another book in the back.  The conclusion was obvious, the hero saved the day, but there were still some unexpected turns it took getting there.

            The lights were already out, Kit not needing them to read in the dark.  She tossed the book to the floor and snuggled up against Bucky’s side.  His eyes were closed, but she suspected he was still awake based on his breathing.  She wondered what he had been thinking about that morning when she had noticed his heart rate elevate, for she was fairly certain it wasn’t about having to pee.  Had he at least talked to Dr. Khnel about it?  She had no idea the kinds of things they spoke about, and wasn’t about to go prying.  How could she expect Bucky to open up to her when she kept things from him?  They had both admitted something deeply personal that morning, their shared sterility, but it only came up because it seemed important given the unexpected turn their relationship had suddenly taken.  Even then, it felt they had said as little as possible.  She didn’t tell Bucky _why_ she thought she would make a bad mother for instance.  And when he had admitted how he thought any fatherly qualities were gone from him, when he got upset, she had willingly let the topic drop.

            In the darkness, Kit looked at the hand she had resting on Bucky’s chest.  Past it, she could make out his shoulder.  Same metals.  Same design.

            “Go to sleep,” Bucky mumbled. “I can tell you’re awake.  You think too loud.”

            Kit shifted to rest her head on his chest so that she could listen to his heartbeat.  The smile that spread across her face was unavoidable.  He wrapped his arm more tightly around her, sliding his prosthetic hand over his stomach to rest on her side.  It was cool, but that just made it pleasant, like flipping over your pillow in the middle of the night.  Focusing on that, Kit managed to let her mind drift and eventually fall asleep.

***

            Kit dreamed that night.  And in those dreams, it all happened again.  The fear.  The pain.  She woke up in a cold sweat, pressed up against the glass wall.  Her breathing was rapid and her heart was racing.

            “You’re okay,” Bucky spoke softly from behind her back, but, for the moment, refrained from touching her.  “You’re in your room in T’Challa’s facility.  You’re safe.”

            “Do you ever wake up like this?” she whispered to the glass.

            “I wake up more hostile.”  His hand lightly fell upon her shoulder.  “Usually sitting up and reaching for a weapon.”

            “What time is it?”  She carefully wiped the tears away.

            “Morning.  Ten to seven.”  Through touch, he coaxed her to roll away from the wall, and slowly relax.

            “Well, at least it’s not the middle of the night.”  She looked at Bucky’s face and saw such concern there that it made her cry again.

            Buck didn’t ask, he just drew her close.

            “I have to tell you.”

            “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

            “No,” Kit shook her head against him.  “You should know.  You should’ve known when we first met.”

            Bucky stayed quiet, letting her take her time.  But starting was so hard.  She hadn’t talked to anyone about this.  Khnel knew all about it, and Yen had _been_ there, but no one heard her tell her side.  No one heard her story.

            “It started with you,” she finally said, the words having to be pried out of herself.

            “Me?”  To his credit, Bucky didn’t pull away.  He didn’t need to see her face, so that she didn’t need to see his.

            “After Siberia, King T’Challa sent a team to the silo.”

            “What kind of team?”

            “A science team.”

            “What for?”

            Kit felt his heart speed up to match what hers had been just a minute ago.  She could guess why.  “Yes, the bodies of the other winter soldiers were collected.  They were identified, cremated, and their ashes were spread in cemeteries in their home towns.”

            “Were tissues taken?”

            “Yes.”

            “What does T’Challa plan to do with them?”

            “A very select team is studying them.”  Kit was glad to be redirecting to another topic.  Too glad.  “As much as more super soldiers being created is a scary thought, that’s not the goal of this team.  They’re trying to see if they can use the tissues to create cures for various diseases.  If there are any signs of increased or extra abilities, then the test is considered a failure and the subjects promptly destroyed.  T’Challa is overseeing the whole thing himself, and the rest of us aren’t even allowed to know where in the facility the testing is taking place, or who is actually doing it.”

            “How can you be sure they can be trusted not to take off with the samples and sell them to the highest bidder?”

            “You don’t think I could build an Iron Man suit given enough time and resources?  We’ve all taken a serious amount of tests, morality tests especially, before we were allowed to work here.  And several people have to separately approve each one of us, a collective that includes both the king and the Black Panther, although lately that’s been the same person.”

            A silence found its way between Kit and Bucky, and Kit felt no need to break it.

            “You were telling me something important,” Bucky eventually tried to get her to continue.  “Don’t let my concerns stop you.  You were talking about a science team going to Siberia.”

            Kit didn’t want to continue, but she supposed she had to now.  “I was a part of the team.  They wanted me to look at the machines that were used to build your original arm, as well as the one used to wipe your mind, and maybe even assist those poking around the cryo tanks.  They had already extracted the bodies by then, as well as the notebooks concerning your… indoctrination.”

            The next part was hard.  Kit felt her throat tighten, her body physically trying to keep the words inside her.

            Bucky stroked her hair, silently encouraging her to continue.

            “I don’t know who they were.  Russians, a surviving splinter of Hydra, some new group…”  Kit swallowed the growing lump that felt like her heart.  “They were… efficient.  Trained…  Brutal.  When the first explosion went off, I didn’t know what it was.  I mean, I knew, but I thought someone had touched something that they shouldn’t have, or something was mishandled.  But then the gunfire started, and suddenly men in black masks were everywhere.  Yen and I were in the middle of the silo, we had been going over the mind wipe machine together.  There was no time to get to proper cover, we had to huddle down where we were.  Yen and I were on opposite sides of the machine’s remains.  He was on the side with less shelter and caught several bullets in the leg.  He was lucky that it was the only thing he ended up losing.  I dragged him around to my side, and used my belt and a broken metal strut to make a tourniquet, Yen managing to walk me through how to do it despite the pain.  There were bullets flying everywhere.  I could hear them ripping through the air, ricocheting off what seemed like every surface.  Not just from the invaders either, but those being fired by our security detail.  I don’t know whether it was a wayward throw, or if I had been seen helping Yen and became a target…  I wasn’t thinking when the grenade landed beside Yen and I.  I instinctively grabbed it and threw it away from us.  But I wasn’t fast enough…  The pain…”  Kit had to stop.  She was there once more.  It was happening all over again, as if the years in between had never occurred.  “The pain…” she choked out.  “My arms took the worst of it.  They protected my head but…  There was pretty much nothing left of them.  I saw…  I saw parts of me fall off, while the rest was just gone.  I went into shock.  Yen and I were lucky that the second grenade was a flashbang.  It landed right in front of me.  My eyes were blinded by the flash.  My ears eventually recovered, but my eyes never did.  Never could.  I don’t know for how long it was just me and my pain.  Time didn’t mean anything.  I thought I was going to die.  No…  At that moment, I _knew_ I was going to die.  I was scared.  I was so scared.”

            The tears were flowing freely now, sliding over false eyes before running down her face.

            “The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a Russian hospital, blind, half deaf, and drugged out of my mind.”

            “Because of me.”

            “No.”  Kit shook her head and furiously wiped at her eyes.  “Don’t you dare blame yourself!”  She had feared he would.  It was why she didn’t want him to know, but also why she had to tell him.  “Yen managed to build me new eyes.  They weren’t great, it was like watching the world on a low-res TV, and I only had one specific field of focus, but it was a start.  It was sight, when I previously had none.  The first thing I did was design and build better eyes.  It wasn’t easy.  Took me months of headaches brought on by the bad eyes, and countless fuck ups caused by trying to use inadequate prosthetics that I had no interest in adapting to.  I nearly gave up hundreds of times.  Yen kept me going.  He kept saying that he hadn’t saved me just so I could off myself.  He wanted me to talk to Dr. Khnel but I refused.  I didn’t want her help, or her carefully masked pity.  Dr. Khnel tried to talk to me anyway, but I wouldn’t speak to her, I just kept working.  Once the second set of eyes were installed, I went to work on the arms and hands.  They wouldn’t have been possible without you.  I was given access to the documents pertaining to your arm.  Yen, Khnel, and some others had already found a way to modify the control method to work for eyesight.  I had the easier task of upgrading what was already there, and then to build the arms themselves.  After that, after I had these,” Kit held up her hands, “I was qualified to return to my regular work.  The eyes I have now are my third pair, made during my down time between projects.  I’ve only had them a few months.  I should be able to correct the light issue with the next pair and then my eyesight will be back to normal.”

            “No one told me that a team had gone to Siberia.”

            “I think Khnel didn’t want you to know.  Not until you were ready and wouldn’t blame yourself for what happened.  The invaders were driven off, by the way.  No one thinks they got anything, and the silo was demolished by a controlled detonation afterward, just in case.”

            “I’m glad you told me.”

            “You had to know.  If we’re to be together, you had to know that while your past put me in danger, it also saved me.”

            “You saved yourself.”

            Kit shook her head again, and finally shifted so that she could see Bucky’s face.  “That’s the part I left out.  I think it’s the reason I started reading to you that first night you were awake.  When I knew I was dying, I didn’t think about my family or friends.  I thought about you.  I knew virtually nothing about you at the time, but I knew I was going to be the one who eventually rebuilt your arm.  No one else could have done as good a job as me, not in this facility at least, and I didn’t see Tony Stark doing you any favours based on what I had heard.  I kept thinking that my death would leave you without an arm.  That you would remain… incomplete.  I think that’s what got me to hold on.  What kept me around while I was field bandaged, carried, and then airlifted away from that place.  What kept me alive until I woke up in that hospital.  Yen did a lot afterwards, that leg I built him will never make up for what he’s done for me, but even after, in my lowest moments, I would remember that I had to build you an arm one day.  I saw my own hands as a prototype for yours.”

            Bucky said nothing.  What could he possibly say after hearing something like that?  What must he be thinking?

            “Khnel probably thought I had developed an obsession considering how frequently I put in requests to start work on your arm.”  Kit bent to hide her face against his chest again.  “Hell, maybe I did.  It’s probably why she wanted to keep us apart.  This can’t be healthy.”

            Bucky’s arms tightened around her.  “There’s nothing wrong with you.  I mean, if you stalked me and I had no interest in you at all, then yeah, we’d probably have a problem.”

            A joke.  He had made a joke.  Kit hadn’t been aware of the coil tightening around her chest until it sprung free.  Until suddenly she could breathe.

            “I’m glad you told me,” Bucky said again.  “You probably should have told all this to Dr. Khnel at some point, for your own sake, but I’m glad that you told me.”

            “I haven’t started work on version four.”

            “What?”

            “Of my eyes.  I haven’t started on them.  I’m afraid of the dark.  With these eyes, there is no darkness, not unless it’s absolute.”

            “You can make them when you’re ready.  They’re your eyes, it’s your decision.  You know I like your eyes just as they are, even if I think you hide them behind those ridiculous sunglasses too often.”

            Kit felt tired.  Not sleepy, but exhausted all the same.  She let Bucky hold her and breathed in the smell of him.  She let herself feel safe, and wondered if he would ever feel the same.

            Probably half an hour passed with neither of them moving, neither of them saying a word.  It was peaceful.  Kit wondered how long it would take to end.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is being posted a day early because I won't have access to a computer over the weekend. It also hasn't been edited as many time as I would like, but oh well. Oh, and next week's chapter will also be posted a day or two early as well, since I'm taking a trip. Regular Friday postings should resume after that.

Bucky practically moved into Kit’s room.  He still maintained his own space, occasionally retreating to it when feeling overwhelmed, but he spent the next several nights sleeping in her bed.  During the day, he spent a lot of time on her couch.  It reminded him of one his parents used to own.  Kit would work on her projects, while Bucky educated himself using her tablet, which often meant reading or watching stuff that had become ingrained in pop culture while he had been out, but also involved a lot of learning the Wakandan language.  Sometimes he’d colour in the colouring book, or write in his notebook.  He kept seeing Dr. Khnel regularly.  He had finally gotten used to telling her things.  Kit wouldn’t go.  She told Bucky he was free to talk to the doc about anything, even things she told him in confidence if he wanted to, but she wouldn’t talk to Khnel herself.

            People got used to seeing them together.  They took their meals together, sometimes eating in Kit’s room and sometimes in the cafeteria.  Yen would stop by and hang out when he was free, while Kit’s co-workers would sometimes start conversations with Bucky when they came by.  Bucky could tell they were still somewhat leery of him, he could kill them in seconds after all, but that was okay.  He had Kit, and Yen, and Khnel, and T’Challa.  He had friends outside the facility as well.  Steve for sure, and maybe even Sam.  He didn’t really know them, but he could probably make friends with Wanda, Clint, and Scott.  They had fought alongside him.  Natasha had even helped him in the end.  He had people he could go to.

            “So how’s your sex life?” Khnel asked one session.

            “Good?”  Bucky didn’t know how to answer that question.  It had come from seemingly no where.

            “Awkward subject?”

            “A little.”

            “Did you used to talk about women with other men?  Your friends in the army, or maybe Steve?”

            “Army talk is different.”

            “As you’ve said.”

            “Yeah, well, it’s really different when it comes to sex.  I’m not going to go into details with you.”

            “Because I’m a woman, because I know Kit, or because I’m not sharing with you?”

            “Can it be all three?”  Bucky shifted in his seat.  “Look, it’s regular, I don’t think there’s too much or too little, nothing feels weird about it.  Can we change topics?”  He had only lost a modicum of control that one time and didn’t think it was worth bringing up.

            “Is there a topic you would like to talk about?”

            “While I have no complaints, I am wondering where this is going.  Therapy, I mean.  Is this it?  Just more and more talk?  What’s the point we’re working toward?”

            “That depends on where you would like to go.  Which is a perfect segue into something I’d like to discuss with you.”

            “What’s that?”

            “A job.”

            “A job?”

            “There’s a part of this facility, down at the base of the cliff, that acts as an animal conservation.  We have several species of endangered animals here, which are a part of breeding programs around the world.  We also take in animals that have lived part of their lives as illegal pets, or circus animals.  They’re too tame to be released back into the wild, so we take care of them here.”

            “Sounds wonderful for them.  What’s this got to do with me?”  Other than the fact that Bucky sometimes felt like one of those kept animals.

            “One of the keepers is on maternity leave.  While she probably won’t take the full year, knowing her, they could use an extra set of hands down there for awhile.  I figured you might benefit from the work.”

            “I don’t know anything about taking care of animals.  I told you, my mom wouldn’t let me keep that dog I found.”

            “The other keepers will walk you through everything, and you won’t be expected to take care of any of the more difficult animals.  I figure that with your strength, and the fact that you have an arm immune to scratching, they may find you quite useful.  Would you like me to call down?  Have you meet some of the keepers and see if you like it?”

            “I guess.  Why not, right?”

            So Bucky found himself riding the elevator down to levels he had never been to before.  He had gone to tell Kit what was going on while Khnel made her call, and she thought it was a great idea.

            “Is this whole cliff a building?” Bucky asked Khnel as they descended together.

            “No, but it’s quite large.  Most of it is built within the upper portion, the spaces which you’ve seen.”

            “What else is down here?”

            “Mostly maintenance and the animal conservation.”

            “Mostly?”

            “The elevator reached the bottom and Khnel didn’t answer, for a skinny man was waiting to meet them.

            “Hey!  I’m E’Rek, it’s great to meet you.”  His handshake was firm and full of energy.  “Let me show you around.”

            Bucky enjoyed the tour.  He got to see plenty of animals, up close, that he had never really gotten to see before.  E’Rek even let him into the pens of several non-dangerous species, such as various birdcages.  The place was a lot better than the zoos of Bucky’s childhood.  The animals had plenty of natural-looking spaces, and seemed content as near as Bucky could figure.

            “I’d like to introduce you to the animals that you’d be working with, if that’s okay?”

            “By all means.”  Bucky glanced back at Khnel who had been shadowing him all day.  She said nothing and her expression betrayed equally little, although Bucky suspected she was setting him up for something.

            While plenty of the enclosures were outside, hidden beneath the jungle’s high and thick canopy, E’Rek led them back to the main building within the cliff and down a few hallways.  Bucky was surprised when they came to a room that had T’Challa standing in front of it.

            “Sergeant Barnes,” the king smiled.  “I hope you enjoyed the tour.”

            “I did, Your Majesty.”

            “Thank you, E’Rek, but I’ll take things from here.”

            “Of course, Your Majesty.”  E’Rek made a shallow bow, and then vacated the area.

            Bucky looked from T’Challa, to Khnel, and then back.  “This job thing was your idea, wasn’t it?”

            “It was,” T’Challa smiled.  “You could say that I have a mission for you.”

            “A mission, huh?”

            “Well, more like a task that will help me complete one of mine.  Come.”  T’Challa opened the door and gestured for Bucky to follow him through.  Khnel stayed behind this time.

            The room beyond looked like other animal care spaces that Bucky had seen on the tour, with an exam table, weigh scales, soft restraints, and cupboards full of supplies.  T’Challa ignored all of these and walked over to a window set in one wall.

            “I saved them from a smuggler.”

            When Buck joined him at the glass, he had to laugh.  “Of course you did.”

            Beyond the window, in a simulated nature setting, were a dozen baby leopards.  Three of them were even the black variety.

            “They’re too young and some too sickly for them to be on their own,” T’Challa explained, pointing out the keeper who was in there with them.  “While we have today covered, it would be a big help to the keepers if you could take a shift covering a few hours a day.”

            “What would I have to do?”

            “Mostly just keep an eye on the sick ones.  We’d love to separate them into smaller groups and prepare them to be returned to the wild, but they were together long enough to have bonded to some degree.  We don’t want to cause undue stress to the sick cubs, so for now we’re keeping them all together.  Unfortunately, the larger and more healthy cubs have a tendency to play too roughly with those who are smaller and sicker.  You’ll have to distract them with toys and games.  You also may be required to feed some of the cubs, or administer medicine.  Don’t worry, we’ll show you how, and there will be a chart telling you what to do and when.  Would you like to go inside and get to know them?”

            “Go into a cage with a dozen leopards?  Why not?”

            T’Challa smiled.  “Wonderful.  Let’s find a suit that fits you.”

            “Suit?”

            “Even small cubs can have sharp claws and pointed teeth.  Everyone who enters must wear protective gear, although I suppose you’ll only need one glove.”  T’Challa stepped over to a locker which stood beside the door that led into the leopard room.  Inside, several shelves were burdened with piles of thick fabric.  “Gloves, jackets, pants,” T’Challa told Bucky, placing a hand on each pile.  “Hoods are optional for now, but recommended.  You’re in charge of caring for your gear, which means it goes with you when you leave, and you have to wash it yourself.”

            “What about you?  Are you not coming in?” Bucky asked as he poked through the stacks and read sizing tags.  The king hadn’t taken any for himself.

            “Oh, I am well protected.”  T’Challa removed his suit jacket and pulled off his turtleneck sweater to reveal that he was wearing his Black Panther getup underneath.

            “Doesn’t that get hot?”  Bucky found a pair of pants and had no compunctions about changing into them in front of the king.

            “It does, but occasionally one must make sacrifices.  Not only does it keep me safe during dangerous diplomatic missions, but also saves me time when… unexpected troubles arise.”  T’Challa removed his nice dress pants and folded them neatly along with his jacket and sweater, placing the pile on the exam table.

            Bucky just kicked his own pants into an out of the way corner.  Once he found a jacket that fit, T’Challa led him into the leopard room, pausing briefly to put on a pair of the thick gloves.

            “Your Majesty,” the keeper already inside greeted him.  While Bucky pulled on the single glove he had taken, he listened as the keeper gave T’Challa an update on the each of the cubs.  When he finished, the keeper left the room.

            “Where’s he going?”

            “His shift is done.”

            “So who’s watching the cubs?  No one’s trained me yet.”

            “This shift is mine.  I will be training you.”

            “You?”

            “Even kings and warriors need time off.  I consider caring for the cubs to be just that.”

            Bucky was glad to hear it was T’Challa training him.  The man had no reservations about Bucky’s past.  Even Buck’s exceptionally enthusiastic tour guide, E’Rek, hadn’t gotten too close and often spoke without looking directly at him.  Not having to deal with yet another person who would rather not be in the same room with him was always better.

            T’Challa first introduced Bucky to each of the cubs.  They stumbled around his feet and sniffed at his boots.

            “Sit down, it’s all right,” T’Challa encouraged him.  “We’ll start weaning the bigger ones we’re hopeful for off of human contact soon, but for now it’s all right.”

            Bucky slowly lowered himself to the floor, making sure he wouldn’t squash any of the curious kitties.  He couldn’t help but smile and laugh when a pair of them instantly climbed into his lap.

            “If you let them stay there long enough, they’ll fall asleep, and you’ll never be able to get up.”  T’Challa picked up the cubs who were sleeping elsewhere and gently moved them all to within arm’s reach before crouching down.

            “So who are the sick ones?” Bucky asked.

            T’Challa pointed them out, and explained what was wrong with each of them.

            “I’m still learning to grasp your language, and I don’t think I can pronounce half the names you’ve given them yet, so I’m calling this one Stevie.”

            “Stevie?”

            “After Captain Rogers.”

            “You are naming the smallest and sickest after Captain America?”

            “Before he was Captain America, he was just like Stevie here.”

            “Then let us hope the leopard turns out just as strong.”

            Bucky spent the next few hours learning how to bottle feed the cubs, medicate them, monitor their health, and learn their moods.  He played with them, kept them from getting too rough with each other, and basically got an excessive amount of cuddles.

            When the next keeper finally came to take a shift, Bucky was almost sad to go.  He listened as T’Challa gave his report to her, learning the terminology and order of importance.  Back out in the exam room, T’Challa put his dress clothes back on while Bucky scooped up his pants.

            “I hear you’re dating one of my mechanics,” T’Challa mentioned, obviously making some sort of small talk.

            “Kit.”  Bucky wasn’t sure that dating was the correct word for it.

            “She’s the one with hands like yours, correct?”

            “Yeah.  She built mine.”

            “I’ve heard she works very hard but isn’t the most personable.”

            “She likes to keep to herself,” Bucky shrugged.

            “Clearly not too much to herself.”  T’Challa flashed Bucky a knowing smile, drawing a chuckle out of him.

            They walked together to the elevator bank and waited for one to arrive.

            “How do you do it?”  Bucky turned to T’Challa.

            “Do what?”

            “Warrior king?  You rule a nation, work as a diplomat, monitor this facility, and personally beat the crap out of people.”

            T’Challa’s laugh was loud, hardy, and honest.  “Well, I sleep very little and I have plenty of people around me to help.”

            Stepping into the elevator, T’Challa pressed two buttons: one for the floor he was going to, and the other one for Bucky.  It was a good opportunity to ask T’Challa more about the facility, but Bucky chose not to.  He had been having a good day, and didn’t want to let his paranoia disrupt that.

            The king’s floor was reached first, and the doors slid open with a soft whoosh.

            “It was nice getting to spend some time with you,” Bucky admitted as T’Challa stepped out.  “We should hang out more often.”

            “We should,” T’Challa agreed.  “Perhaps I will seek you out the next time I have a spare moment.”

            “We can grab a beer.”

            The elevator doors closed on T’Challa’s chuckle.

            Reaching his own floor, Bucky stepped out and made is way straight to Kit’s room.  His good mode hit a snag when he saw the glass was completely opaque.  He only saw it that way at night, when she, or more so lately _they_ , wanted privacy.  It seemed unlikely that the glass was updating again already, or that she was having a private meeting, as she always insisted on having those kinds of meetings with her superiors elsewhere.  Had Khnel finally decided to try cornering her?

            “Kit?” Bucky called out as he pushed into the room, his eyes always taking a second to adjust to the dim lighting.

            She was on him the moment he was through the door, before it even had time to close behind him.  Her hands gripped tight to his new jacket as she smashed her mouth into his.  The surprise almost caused him to throw her across the room, and did cause him to drop the pants he had carried back.

            “Fuck me,” she hissed into his ear.

            Bucky had no problem obliging.  She pulled him over to the bed, knocking out her own knees when she struck it.  The sex was quick and good, neither of them bothering with stripping more than was necessary.

            After finishing, Bucky flopped over to the side, nearly falling off the edge of the bed in the process.

            “I have no complaints, but I gotta ask what that was about,” Bucky said on a long exhalation.

            “I finally had a breakthrough with the landing gear problem.”  Kit turned her head to smile at him, flat on her back and grinning ear to ear.

            “Victory sex, nice.”  Bucky gave her a thumbs up.

            “Nice get up,” Kit teased, plucking at the tough fabric of his keeper clothes.

            “T’Challa gave me a shift babysitting leopard kittens.”  Bucky got up and crossed the room, locating the cupboard with the paper towel roll in it so that he could somewhat clean himself up.

            “Baby leopards?  Seriously?”

            “Twelve of them.”  Bucky tossed her the paper towel roll when he was done with it.

            “Twelve baby leopards, oh my god.  Please tell me it’s as cute as it sounds.”

            “It’s as cute as it sounds.”  Bucky pulled off the thick material jacket and changed back into his more comfortable pants after picking them up off the floor.

            “Fuck me,” Kit said again, although this time it was an appreciative sigh instead of a demand.

            Bucky glanced over and saw her checking out his legs and ass as he changed.

            “Sometimes I just want to slobber all over you.”

            “I’m pretty sure that’s more gross than hot,” Bucky pointed out.

            “Could be.  So tell me more about these leopard kittens.”

            “I don’t know, they’re leopard kittens.  Heh,” a thought had just hit Bucky.  “Kit.  Kittens.”

            “Don’t you dare start calling me kitten!” Kit threatened as she sat up.  “Only my mom can call me that.”

            “You don’t really talk about your mom.”  Bucky flopped down on her work chair.

            “There’s not much to talk about.  I was mostly raised by my grandparents because my mom was more interested in ‘finding herself’ even though she wasn’t exactly young.  When I went to college we slowly stopped contacting one another, until we lost touch.  She could contact me if she wanted, and I’m sure I could find her if I was interested, but we haven’t even exchanged Christmas cards in a long time.”

            “That’s so weird to me.  I would love to talk to my mom again.”

            “Aww.”  Kit got up and walked over, sitting sideways on his lap in order to hug him.  “Do you know where she’s buried?”

            “Yeah, but I haven’t been to see her.  I didn’t know who she was when I left the States.  I barely even knew who _I_ was.”

            “I’m sorry.  King T’Challa might be able to find a way to smuggle you in to see her.”

            Bucky shook his head.  “It’s just a gravestone.  Maybe one day I’ll get to see it, but there’s no need for a clandestine operation just for that.”

            Kit brushed his hair back and kissed his forehead.  They sat quietly together for a moment while Kit played with Bucky’s hair.

            “I’m going to cut it,” Bucky decided.

            “Cut what?  Your hair?”

            “Yeah.  I think it’s time.”

            “Can I do it?”

            “You want to cut my hair?”

            “I do.  I used to cut my grandpa’s hair so it shouldn’t turn out too horribly.”  She continued playing with his hair, but now appeared to be studying it as well.

            “Do you have a razor and some scissors?”

            “Scissors, yes.  Razor, not so much.  Not for this kind of hair anyway.  I’m sure Yen has one I can borrow though.”

            Bucky glanced at the clock.  “Well, it’s about dinner time.  We can go eat in the cafeteria, and flag him down if he shows up.  If not, we’ll go find him.”

            “Sounds like a plan.”  Kit kissed his forehead again and slid off his lap.  “I gotta piss first.”

            “Then you better go do that.”  Bucky got up and went to the glass, activating the controls built into it.  “I’m changing the opacity!” he called to Kit to warn her, just in case.

            When she was ready, she put on her sunglasses and threaded her fingers through Bucky’s.

            “I forgot to ask, what was your solution to the landing gear thing?”

            Kit explained it as they walked, and Bucky didn’t understand half of it due to the technical terms, but it sounded different and it made Kit happy.

            The featured dinner that night was sushi.  Bucky was willing to try it, but Kit opted out, ordering a grilled cheese instead.

            “I don’t like fish, what would I like raw fish?” Kit said in her defence.

            “You’re going to try some of mine.”

            “Please, no.”

            “Yup.  You’re going to eat this piece right here.”  Bucky picked out a pink piece.

            “Looks gross.”

            “So does grilled cheese when you think about it.  Come on, eat it.”

            “We’re being that annoying couple right now.”

            “Eat it and I’ll stop.”

            “Fine.”  Kit allowed Bucky to pop the piece in her mouth.  She scrunched her face, chewed quickly, shook her head, and made some very displeased sounds.

            “That good, huh?”

            “Yeah, no, no sushi for me.  How are you eating that?”

            Bucky shrugged.  “It’s food and I like food.”

            Yen showed up half way through the meal.  He spotted where they were sitting and made his way over to sit beside Kit.

            “Not you too,” Kit sighed as Yen put down a plate of sushi.

            Yen took a second to figure out what was going on.  “Did you try any?”

            Kit made a face.

            “She’s not a fan,” Bucky translated.

            “I love sushi days.”  Yen displayed his love with perfect chopstick skills, knowing what each piece was, and what the best flavouring was for each of them.

            “Hey, Yen, can we borrow your razor after dinner?” Kit asked as she finished the last of her sandwich.

            “What for?  Doesn’t Bucky have one?”

            “I have one that only works for my face.  Kit’s going to cut my hair.”

            “Yeah, I have one you can use.  Take pictures for me before you get a pro to fix it,” Yen joked.

            “Haha,” Kit rolled her eyes.

            Bucky and Kit finished before Yen, but continued to sit with him.  They made idle chat, Bucky having to talk a lot about the baby leopards at Kit’s insistence.  He was tired of talking by the time Yen finished his meal.  When they walked to Yen’s room, he let Kit and him do all the talking.

            He had never been to Yen’s room, whenever they hung out it was in Kit’s room, a common area, or, very rarely these days, Bucky’s room.  When they reached it, Kit stopped outside while Yen went in.  Bucky silently asked Kit a question.  She shook her head with a gesture that implied she would tell him later.

            Yen had left the door open, so Bucky could see the immaculate cleanliness within that he had expected from the doc, but he and Kit hovered outside.  It seemed that Yen didn’t own much, and what he did have, was all placed with sharp precision.  It looked like a show room, the kind you’d see when someone was trying to sell something.  Yen exited his adjacent bathroom, razor in hand.  He stopped off by a closet on the way, and withdrew a gym bag from it.

            “I’m serious, send me pictures if it turns out horrible,” he said, passing Kit the razor and acting like there was nothing odd about them having waited in the hall outside his room.  “I’d love to watch, but my floor hockey team has a game.”

            “It’s not going to turn out horribly,” Kit insisted as they headed back to her room.  “Maybe I’ll take pictures part way through though.”

            They reached a junction where Yen had to take a different hallway than them in order to reach the elevator bank.  They said brief goodbyes that were more see-you-laters, and went their separate ways.

            “Yen’s always been very neat,” Kit whispered once he was gone.  “But after…” she waved her hands instead of mentioning the actual incident.  “It kinda got out of control.  Khnel taught him how to manage it, but his room is his safe space.  He gets agitated if anyone moves anything, and just seeing someone in his room where they _might_ move something makes him anxious.  I’ve learned to just stay out.”

            Bucky had never realized just how many different ways being messed up could manifest itself.  Between his paranoia, Kit’s refusal to acknowledge anything was wrong, and Yen’s apparent cleaning compulsion, they made quite the trio.  He looked at the doors they walked past and wondered what the people beyond them might be dealing with that he had no idea about.

            Back in Kit’s room, she led Bucky into the bathroom.

            “Wash your hair,” she ordered, then exited the bathroom, leaving the electric razor behind.

            Bucky thought he could use a shower in general, so he stripped bare and stepped under the water.

            “That’s tempting,” Kit commented as she returned to the bathroom, carrying the straight-backed chair.

            “You’re welcome to join me,” he told her.

            “Maybe later.  I don’t want to be dripping wet while I cut your hair.”  She sat in the chair and waited for Bucky to finish.

            When he stepped out of the shower, she got up and tossed a towel at him.

            “That’s for around your waist.  You don’t want me distracted while I’m holding scissors near your head.”

            “Better my head than lower down.”  He wrapped the towel about himself, and sat on the chair.

            Kit wrapped a second towel around his shoulders, and started by running a comb through his hair.

            “I never asked what style of hair your grandpas had,” Bucky realized as she started to snip off chunks.  “I’m not going to end up with a mullet, am I?”

            “Ooo, I could totally do that right now.”

            “Yen would probably love it if you did.”

            “I should.  We’ll take pictures for him.”

            “And then hack into his email and delete them, right?”

            “I’m not actually going to do it.  It might make me cry.  It’s probably going to look a lot like what you had in the military, is that okay?”

            “Go for it.”

            The chair was facing the shower so Bucky couldn’t see himself in the mirror.  He watched clumps of his hair fall to the floor and on his lap.  He picked up a piece and spent a second studying it before flicking it to the tile.  Based on his memories of previous haircuts, Kit seemed to know what she was doing.  It felt like she was properly using the comb with the razor on shorter sections.  The _snick, snick, snick,_ of the scissors was a little agitating though.  He used to like the sound, but now blades that weren’t in his hands put him on edge.  Cutlery sometimes had the same effect.  But he bared with it.  Cutting his hair had been his idea after all, and it would look awful if Kit stopped partway through.  It was good that Kit could do it.  Anyone else, he may not have trusted enough to see it through to the end.

            “All done,” Kit announced, brushing off his neck with the towel.  “Want to take a look?”

            Bucky stood and turned to face the mirror.  It was strange, almost shocking.  He looked so much like he had, and so different from that man as well.  The Bucky Barnes who had joined the war, was meeting the Winter Soldier in the planes of his face.

            “What do you think?” Kit asked, slipping her arms around his chest from behind.  She had put her glasses up on her head, her metal eyes meeting Bucky’s in the reflection between his left shoulder and ear.  Her lips were pressed against the metal of his back.

            “I’m not sure.”

            “Is it bad?”  Her forehead wrinkled.

            “No.  No, it’s definitely not bad.”  He lifted his right hand and ran it over his head.  “It’s good,” he decided.

            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah.”

            Kit kissed his neck.  “Now about this towel.”  Her hands slid down his body.

            “About that shower.”  Bucky turned and lifted Kit in his arms as he let the towel fall to the floor.  He carried her straight into the tub.

            “No!  I’m still dressed!” she squealed.

            Bucky quickly frisked her for a phone, tablet, or anything else not water safe while keeping her gently pinned against the tile wall.  Upon finding nothing, he turned on the water, making Kit squeal again, wordlessly this time.

            “Don’t worry.  You won’t be for long.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned last week, this week's chapter also needs to be posted a day early. Regular Friday posting will resume next week. Also, for you lovely people who leave comments, it'll take me longer than usual to read and respond for I'm likely not going to have any internet until I get back from my trip. Enjoy reading!

            When Kit was with Bucky she was happy.  Incredibly happy.  But whenever he was gone and she had time to think, her creeping insecurities came crawling out of the dark.  She could only bury herself so deep in her work in an attempt to hide from them.  She hadn’t spoken to anyone about it, she didn’t know how, but she had become certain that Bucky was going to leave.  Maybe not soon, but eventually.  And she knew exactly how it was going to happen.  At some point, Steve Rogers was going to show up.  And it wouldn’t be just to visit either.  Captain America would arrive with a mission that required Bucky’s help.  And Bucky would go.  Of course he would go, how could he not?  Not only was Steve his best friend, but Bucky was a soldier.  Even before he joined the army, that was the kind of person he was.  Bucky helped people and would use violence when necessary.  He would go with Steve.  And he wouldn’t come back.  Captain America would have another mission, and then another.  And Kit would fight against none of it, because even if he didn’t know it now, it’s what Bucky would want to do.  Perhaps this is what Khnel saw coming all along.  She could read people so well, she basically predicted their futures.  It’s what Kit had felt that first time she was with Bucky, amongst all that joy there was the dread of it ending.  She understood the pain that was coming.

            For now though, she was going to be happy, or at least try to be.  She was going to enjoy the time she had with him.

            “Are you going to be done working soon?” Bucky asked, coming up behind her and flopping his arms over hers.

            “Done?  It’s not even the middle of the afternoon.  We ate lunch like an hour ago.”

            “Yeah, but I need you to come with me.”

            “Come with you where?  Don’t you have to go baby sit the leopards soon?”

            “Where do you think we’re going?”  Bucky leaned back and spun her around in her chair.  He had on his wolf grin and his keeper clothes.

            “Wait, what?”  It took Kit’s brain a moment to process.  “You’re taking me to see the baby leopards?”  There was no way to keep the enthusiasm out of her voice.

            “I cleared it with the other keepers.  As long as you can find gear that fits you and you follow the rules I tell you, you can come with me today.”

            “Oh my god.”  Kit briefly hid her face in her hands, definitely over reacting.  Bucky had kept telling her about the cubs, and every time she wished she could at least see them.

            “They’re going to start separating them tomorrow, and a few days after that they’re not going to need me to keep taking shifts anymore.  Basically, it’s today or never, so are you done working?”

            “Yes!  Yes, I’m done!  Let’s go!”  Kit shot to her feet and turned Bucky’s grin into an honest smile.

            “This might be the closest thing we’ve had to a date,” Bucky commented at they left the room.

            “We’ve had plenty of dinners with movies,” Kit pointed out.  “That’s a pretty standard date.”

            “Not when they both occur where you sleep.”  Bucky slipped his hand around hers while they walked to the elevator.  “Today we’re actually going somewhere.”

            “I’m not totally sure going to where you work counts.”

            “Like I said, closest thing to.”

            “Maybe for the next date you could get flowers,” Kit teased him.

            “Would you like flowers?” he asked honestly.

            “Sure, why not?  Flowers are pretty.”

            “Is there anywhere around here where I can get flowers?”

            “If you’re careful, you can steal them from the relaxation garden.”

            “Encouraging me to steal?  You’re a bad influence, Kit Marcellus.”

            Kit laughed and leaned on his shoulder while they waited for the elevator.  She assumed she looked like a dorky, smitten teenager in that moment, and couldn’t care less.  How could she be anything but excited when going to see a dozen baby leopards with the guy she loved?

            Kit’s thoughts froze her.  Did she really just think that?  Did she _love_ Bucky?  Her joy turned a quick one-eighty into panic.  Her heart hummed in her chest, and she thought for sure Bucky had to hear it.  Maybe he did.

            “Are you all right?  What’s wrong?”

            She couldn’t lie, at least not the standard line about it being nothing, about her being fine.  “I had a flashback,” she lied instead.  “Of when I was attacked in the silo.  It hasn’t happened during the day for such a long time, I thought it had stopped.”

            “Will you be all right?  Do you want to go back to your room?”

            “No.  No, I want to see the leopards.  Now or never, right?  I’ll be okay.”  But would she be?

            Bucky moved his hand from around hers, to around her shoulders.  He held her close as they got on to the elevator.  Kit attempted to forget the whole thing.  It was a slip of the tongue, only a mental version.  She wasn’t in love.  No way.  He was going to leave with Steve one day, she couldn’t afford to fall in love with him.

            When they reached the bottom, Kit had managed to right herself to some degree.

            “We’re actually a bit early,” Bucky said, taking her hand again.  “Want to see one or two of the other animals first?”

            “Yeah, sounds great.”

            Bucky first took her to a hatchery for a type of rare songbird that was only native to the area.  The momma birds were half wild, only being held in captivity while raising their young.  Bucky explained that a team went out and found the nests, and then brought them here where they were safe from predators and supplied with ample amounts of food.

            “How do they get the mother birds here?” Kit wondered, looking through the glass at the poofs of brilliant green plumage.  The males were apparently red.

            “That’s the thing, the females don’t get off the nests until the eggs have hatched, no matter what.  Loss of habitat has resulted in them nesting in riskier areas.  Predators find the nests, often killing both the mother and the eggs.  Or the male bird dies and can no longer feed the female.  Here, they’re safe and get food.  Repeat mothers learn pretty quickly, and have stopped pecking at and stressing over the poles that are used to feed them.  They’re disguised as male birds, but obviously not very well.”

            The second stop was to peek in on a baby elephant.  She was sleeping, but Kit still delighted to see her.  But the time they headed to the leopards, Kit was feeling really excited and bubbly again.  Baby animals did that to her.

            Entering the exam room, she was instantly drawn to the window.  Most of them were sleeping, but two were stumbling around, paying with the keeper currently on duty.  Bucky let her watch while he rooted around in a locker.  After a minute or two, he joined her.

            “Here, put these on.”

            Kit accepted the coarse fabric.  Bucky had gotten her pants that were too big so that she could just pull them on over the pair she was already wearing.

            “I might want to skip work if you start taking your pants off,” he explained.

            After she put on the jacket, Bucky grabbed a pair of hoods from the locker.

            “There’s ears on them,” Kit noticed, quickly pulling the hood onto her head.

            “Weaning them off human contact, means looking less human.”  Bucky also put on a hood.

            “Awww,” Kit started and quickly devolved into laughter.

            “Am I as adorable as you?” Bucky asked, putting his arms around her waist.

            “I can’t take you seriously in that thing.”  Kit couldn’t stop giggling.

            “Maybe I should wear it all the time then.  All right, this last part is… not pleasant.”  Bucky stepped away to pick up a spray bottle off a counter.  “This makes you smell less human, more leopard.”  

            The smell was a little over powering at first, and Kit gagged once.  It was like when teenage boys sprayed on too much cologne.  Bucky sprayed her down, having her cover her eyes just in case, and then did himself.

            “I’d been wondering why your clothes have been so smelly lately.”

            “Yeah, there’s a reason I’ve been stashing them away as quickly as I’ve been able.  Thankfully, it gets less potent as the day goes on.  Come on.”

            Bucky took Kit’s hand and led her into the leopard room.  He left her to wait by the door while he formally switched out with the other keeper, the two of them trading information in a short hand Kit didn’t know.  Bucky’s Wakandan was coming along fairly well.  After the other keeper left, Kit giving him a polite smile and nod as he walked by, Bucky waved her over.

            “This one is Stevie,” he said, kneeling down to stroke one of the black sleeping cubs.  “He’s the one we’ve had to watch over the most.  He’s under developed and has a lung infection.”

            “And they let you name him?”  Kit crept over and carefully knelt among the sleeping kittens.  The ones who had been playing had run off when they entered, but now began to make their way back over.

            “No, he has a Wakadan name like the others, I just call him Stevie cause it’s easier.  I gave them all secondary names.  That one’s Widow.  He’s Scott.  The fat boy there is Falcon.”  Bucky went through all the names.  Kit knew they were all names of people who had helped him in the past, from various Avengers and other powered people, to the Howling Commandos.  It made Kit love the cubs more.

            For the next several hours, Kit got to play and sit with the leopard cubs.  Bucky gave her suggestions on what to play with them, and administered medicines when required.  He had Kit help feed some, plopping a cub down on her lap and handing her a bottle, explaining what to do.  Kit spent the day delighted and giggling.  At one point, she lay on her stomach and let several of the cubs crawl on top of her.  One of them was little Stevie, who promptly fell asleep on her shoulder blades.

            “Now you’re doomed to never move,” Bucky told her, playing with one of the bigger cubs with his metal hand to keep her from rough housing with some of the others.

            “That’s okay.  I can die happy like this.”  Another cub came over to investigate her face, forcing her to hide it in her arms.

            When she next looked up, Bucky had lain down in front of her so that they were face to face.

            “Having a good day?” he asked.

            “Yes.  A great day.  Thank you.”

            Bucky stretched forward to kiss her forehead, then got back up to play with some of the other leopards.

            The cub that Kit thought was Widow came over and curled up against her arms.  The young cub purred as she snuggled up against Kit.  Kit breathed deep the little leopard’s scent.  She listened to the animal’s small rumble, and watched its belly move with its breath.  It was relaxing.  Kit studied the form and fur of the baby leopard, thinking about nothing.

            “All right, Stevie, come with me.”  Bucky plucked the little leopard off of Kit’s back.

            “He was okay there.”  Kit looked up, confused.

            “Yeah, but my shift’s over.  It’s time for us to go.”

            Kit was surprised.  She had no idea how much time had passed.  She sat up just as the next keeper came in.  While Bucky relayed the same confusing batch of information he had received upon entering, Kit went around the room and said goodbye to each of the kitties.  Bucky took her hand as they left.

            “Should I leave these here?” Kit asked about her clothes.

            “Nah, leave them on for now.  I’ll wash them and bring them back down later.  Are you hungry, or do you want to walk around a bit?” he asked.

            “Let’s walk around a bit.  I’ve never had a reason to come down here before.  I don’t think I’m normally allowed.”

            So Bucky showed her around, bringing her to enclosures where she was likely to see some of the animals.  Since it wasn’t a public zoo, they weren’t built for viewing, but some of the animals had been raised completely by humans and approached the fences when they showed up.  Kit imagined spending all night there, but before the sun even began to set, her stomach made itself known.

            “So you’re going to be out of a job again in a few days, huh?” she commented as they made their way back to the elevators.  “I’m going to have to put up with you interrupting my work at all hours again.”

            “Yes and no.  T’Challa has another job lined up for me, although its hours won’t be nearly as regular.”

            “What’s this other job?”

            The way Bucky hesitated before answering worried her.  “He’s going to sit me in his operational control room every now and again.”

            “What does that mean?  What’s an operational control room?”

            “It’s where military assets and surveillance are co-ordinated.”

            Kit processed this as the elevator arrived.  “What will you be doing?”

            “Not much.  There’s a few operations he’s running to catch a large smuggler organization, the one that took the leopard cubs.  He wants me to sit in and watch the video feeds, point out anything I notice.  T’Challa thinks I’ll be able to spot things others might miss.”

            Kit held his hand tighter, and gripped his forearm with her other hand.

            “I won’t be anywhere near any danger.”  Bucky had misunderstood the reason for her reaction.  “I’ll be safely squirreled away in another room of this very building.”

            “I know.”  She was worried about the next operation.  About T’Challa’s next job for him.  The king was clearly preparing Bucky to go back into the field.  Was Rogers behind it, or had T’Challa come to the decision on his own?  Had this always been the plan from the start?  Was Khnel in on it?  And if she was, what did it matter?  Bucky was a soldier.  He was going to return to duty eventually no matter what, T’Challa was just easing him into it.

            “Want to talk to me?”  Bucky was clearly concerned about her silence as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

            “After we get dinner,” she delayed, the elevator opening on their floor.

            Nothing was said between them as they went to the cafeteria, but Bucky kept looking at her, trying to figure out what she was thinking.  Once they had their meals and returned to Kit’s room, Bucky closed the door and made the wall opaque.

            “So what’s up?” he was asking before he even sat down.

            “Do you know where this is going?”

            “Us or the job?”

            “Don’t they both go to the same place?”

            Bucky wouldn’t meet her eyes.  He knew.  He probably knew the moment T’Challa gave him this new job, this new assignment.  He probably didn’t factor in Captain America’s eventual arrival, but he knew he was being prepared for the field.

            “I thought I’d be okay with it.”  Curled up on her chair, Kit’s appetite had completely gone.

            Bucky frowned.  “What do you mean?  I only told you about the assignment today.”

            “I’ve said it before: you’re a soldier.  I realized awhile ago that you’d return to the fight eventually.  But now…  Today…” She buried her face in her arms, similar to how she had when with the leopards.

            “What about today?”  Bucky scooted his chair up to hers, his knees on either side of the tips of her boots that poked over the edge of her seat.  He reached forward to slowly rub her upper arms.

            Kit shook her head.  She couldn’t say it.

            “Is it because you love me?”

            A terrible sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob forced its way out of Kit.  Of course he had figured it out.  He had probably figured it out before the thought had popped into her head.  He noticed everything.

            “Can you say it?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her, pressing his shoulders up against her knees.

            “I…” her throat tightened so that no words were possible.

            “Hey.  Hey.”  Bucky took hold of her arms again, this time gently prying them away from her legs.  He held her hands.  “Look at me.  Come on, look up.”

            She lifted her face.  Bucky’s eyes were shining, shimmering with tears that refused to fall, unlike the ones that trailed down Kit’s cheeks.

            “If you can’t say it, then I will.  I love you.  I didn’t think I could ever love anyone, but you proved me wrong.  I almost wish you hadn’t.  We’re both going to hurt when I leave, and we know I’m leaving eventually.”

            “When Steve comes,” Kit managed to whisper.

            “When Steve comes,” Buck agreed.  So he knew about that too.

            “I love you,” Kit finally got out.  “Why do I have to love you?”

            “I guess we now know what Khnel really had a problem with.”

            The grief made it hurt to laugh.  Kit squirmed off her chair and onto Bucky’s lap where he held her tight.  She was torn in two by the opposing emotions.  Love and sorrow in equal measures.

            “So what do we do now?” Kit finally spoke into the silence.

            “Well, I think we should eat our dinner, for one.  Then take a shower, or maybe a bath if you want to try squeezing into the tub together.  After that, we’ll pick a movie.  Something stupid.  We’ll lie on the couch together, or maybe even just climb into bed.  We’ll definitely be in our pyjamas.  When the movie ends, we’ll read and go to sleep.”

            “And after that?”

            “We’ll take it one day at a time.  I’m good at that.  Think you can handle it?”

            “I can try.”

            They ended up shifting to the floor so that they could both eat in relative comfort, while Kit continued to lean against his chest.  Her appetite hadn’t returned, but she ate anyway.  When she paused for too long between bites, Bucky lifted a forkful of his own food to her mouth.  They ended up feeding each other by the end of the meal, which brought a cautious smile to Kit’s face.

            “You stink,” she told Bucky as he reached up to place their empty dishes on the workbench.

            “And what?  You’re roses?” he retorted.  “Bath or shower?”

            “We’ll never both fit in the bath, so shower.”

            “I think we could both fit,” he said as he stood, offering a hand to help up Kit.

            “If by fit, you mean you crunched up and me crunched up even smaller on top of you, then maybe.”

            In the bathroom, Bucky pulled her jacket down while nuzzling into her neck.

            “I’ve ruined an otherwise perfect day,” Kit told him, unable to respond to his affection.

            “No, you haven’t.  This day has been coming for awhile.”

            “I ruined leopard day.”

            Bucky laughed, and Kit was certain it was because she had sounded like a sulky kid.  “I thought of leopard day because I could see something had been bugging you, despite your attempts to hide it.  It’s finally out in the open now, which means leopard day did what it was supposed to do.”

            “I didn’t know I loved you until today.”

            Bucky kissed her while he pulled off his own jacket so that only their lips were connected.  “I can’t recall when I realized I love you,” he said after breaking contact.  “I just knew that one day I did, and that I had for awhile.”

            “You’re trying to find the perfect line, aren’t you?”  Kit pulled up his shirt.

            “Did I find it?”  He held her hips and pulled her close.

            “Not quite.”  She smiled for him, but it was one she had to put on.  “But don’t stop trying.”

            “You have too many pants on.”

            That was definitely not the perfect line, but the unexpectedness of it caused Kit to laugh.

            They undressed each other and got into the shower.  Kit wasn’t interested in having sex in the way she usually was; she wanted it for the intimacy this time, not the pleasure.  She hated the cliché, but she swore they made love in that shower.  Both of them were more tender than they had been before.  It was about being together and feeling one another more than they had previously.

            “I’m fucking crying,” Kit admitted afterward, her tears hidden in the flow from the showerhead.

            Bucky kissed both her eyelids.

            “I hate you because I love you,” she laughed.

            “I’m glad I don’t have that problem.”

            “What’s next on the list?”

            “Pyjamas and a stupid move.”

            They scrubbed each other off with towels, and moved to the closet.  While he didn’t wear them often, Bucky put on the flannel pyjama bottoms Kit had gotten for him.

            “You’re calmer than me about all this,” Kit commented as they curled up on the couch together.

            “Or I’m just better at containing it within myself so as to keep from upsetting you.”

            “Is that something Khnel told you?”

            “Does it matter if it is or isn’t?”

            “I suppose not.”

            “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve had a few panic attacks about this whole thing.”

            “That does make me feel a little better actually.”

            “Know any good shitty movies?”

            “I’m sure we’ll be able to find something together.”

            Whether the movie they finally settled on was shitty or not, Kit couldn’t say.  She could barely pay attention to it.  Her mind wouldn’t let go of the future.

            “You’re thinking,” Bucky noticed.

            “I’m always thinking, that tends to be a constant of life.”

            “You know what I mean.”

            Kit curled more tightly against him.

            “What are you thinking about right now?” he asked.

            “That I have no idea what’s going on in this movie.  Is that shark making an island sink?”

            “Looks like it.  What were you thinking about before that?”

            “How much it’s going to suck when you’re gone.”

            “It’s not like I’ll be leaving forever.  As long as King T’Challa is fine with it, I don’t see why I can’t just come back.”

            “That’s going to be dependent on Captain America.”

            “I can make my own decisions.”  Bucky got defensive.

            Kit twisted around so that she could look him in the eye.  “If Steve tells you he needs you, do you really think you could say no?”

            Bucky didn’t have an answer for her, his face remaining in an infuriatingly neutral expression.  Kit returned her attention to the movie.

            “I can’t change who I am,” Bucky said after several minutes went by.

            “I know that, and I don’t expect you to.  I don’t _want_ you to.”

            She felt and heard Bucky inhale, as if he was about to say something else, but she cut him off.

            “There is no perfect string of words to make me feel better right now.  I just need to work through this in my head for a bit, okay?  I told you that I love you, and I mean that, I just need… I don’t know.  Time, I guess, to wrap my head around this whole situation.  Let me be sad for awhile.”

            Bucky exhaled.  “Okay.”  He kissed the top of her head.  “Just…  Don’t be afraid to talk to me, all right?”

            Kit nodded.  The movie ended, most of it having been ignored.  Bucky and Kit brushed their teeth, took turns using the toilet, and climbed into bed together.  Kit picked up the book they had been reading.  They had finished the collection of grisly short stories and had recently started a novel about a plague outbreak.  Kit just stared at the cover.  She couldn’t imagine speaking right now, even if it was to read someone else’s words.

            “Here.”  Bucky took the book from her.  “How about I read tonight?”

            “You?”

            “Yes, me.  Believe it or not, I’m quite good at reading.”

            Kit couldn’t keep up the banter.  She stayed silent and let Bucky pick up where they had last left off.  It was interesting to hear him read.  He changed his voice subtly for each character’s dialogue, and Kit didn’t realize that she most likely did the same until she heard him do it.  She listened to him read and tried not to think about how cold and quiet her room would be after he was gone.


	16. Chapter 16

            Bucky was having a hard time with Kit’s whole ‘let me be sad’ thing.  He tried his best to leave her be, but he hated seeing her sad, especially knowing that he was essentially the cause of it.

            He tried talking about it to Khnel but that had gone surprisingly poorly.  Bucky hadn’t worded things right to begin with, so that Khnel thought _he_ was the one who was sad.  When he got across the point that he was talking about Kit, the doc then pushed for him to convince Kit to have a session with her.  There was no way Bucky was going to do that knowing how Kit felt about therapy, so he eventually insisted they just drop the whole thing.

            But the thing was, he actually was sad too.  He had hoped that Kit wouldn’t realize what was down the line, but of course she had come to the same conclusion that he had.  He wanted to spend what time he could with her being happy, but he couldn’t be happy while she wasn’t.    But Kit wasn’t like him.  She felt what she felt and couldn’t even pretend that she didn’t.  She couldn’t fake it until it was real.  So Bucky spent his last few days of having shifts with the leopards confused, annoyed, and mostly frustrated.

            He sat with little Stevie on his lap during his last day.  The two other cubs that still shared a space with him—not quite as small but also in need of medical care—were curled up and sleeping together nearby.  Stevie was probably going to stay in the Wakandan facility’s animal sanctuary.  The problems he was having seemed to stem from a genetic disorder, and while there was a chance that he’d grow out of it, he’d need human care for quite awhile, too long to be able to properly rehabilitate him for the wild.  Stevie also tended to gravitate to his caregivers more than the other cubs did.  It seemed he liked humans.

            “So I’m going to go, and you’re going to stay,” Bucky spoke to the cub.  “What do you think of that?”

            Stevie stretched one of his legs, splaying his toes.

            “That’s quite the thought.”

            Bucky missed having all the cubs together.  There was always at least one awake, one he could play with.  Right now, and on several other days, the smaller numbers would all sleep at the same time.  Bucky was left alone with his thoughts, which were running in ever decreasing circles.  He wasn’t sure what to do.  It was an unpleasant feeling.  Feeling trapped was worse, he knew he definitely didn’t feel trapped.  He felt… lost.  Confused.  He was used to taking action, to always moving forward.  This sitting around was maddening.  But he had been asked by Kit to do nothing.

            “Sometimes I think living on the run was easier,” Buck admitted to Stevie.  “I always knew what I was doing, even if I was struggling with who I was.”

            Stevie made a low sound, stretched some more, and rolled over.

            “Fine, I’ll shut up.”

            When Bucky’s shift ended, he was reluctant to leave.  The keepers had promised to keep him updated on the cubs, and would let him know if there was a good time to visit, or if they needed help with anything.  Bucky held Stevie for a lingering moment, smelling his fur and kissing his fluffy head.  When he put the cub down, he knew what he was going to do.

            Not daring to hesitate, Bucky didn’t spend any time lingering around the zoo.  He headed straight for the elevators, and from there to Kit’s room.  Kit was working at her desk, making a mini drone the guys building the VTOL could use to view the thing from all angles without having to climb on top of it.

            “How was your last day?” she asked when Bucky entered.

            He didn’t answer.  Buck closed the door, turned the glass opaque, grabbed the straight-backed chair, the one he had come to consider his chair, and dragged it over beside her.  Kit turned away from the table and scooted half an inch back from him.  His mildly aggressive behaviour had startled her and was definitely confusing her.  Her posture was defensive as Bucky sat down.

            He looked directly into her self made eyes.  “Do you want to break up with me?”

            “What?”

            “Do you want to break up with me?” he repeated.

            “No.”  She sounded like that idea offended her.

            “Then you need to stop acting like I’m already gone.”

            She opened her mouth, but Bucky held up his hand to stop her from speaking and continued.

            “I get that you’re sad.  I get that this sucks.  And it _does_ suck.  But you know what’s making it absolute shit?  This feeling that you’re already pulling away.  That you’re putting up walls.  I get it, you’re protecting yourself, preparing yourself.  You’re doing what you think is best for you, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  But right now?  Right now _I_ need you.  I need you here, with me.  I’m being selfish by asking you to do this, but fuck it, I’m going to be selfish today.  Either you forget about the future, which, believe me, is never as certain as you think it is, and actually live in the here and now with me, or you break up with me so that I can start moving on from us.”

            Kit stared at him, her eyes filling with tears.

            “I’ll go back to my room and give you time to think.”  Bucky got up from his chair and headed for the door.  He didn’t make it there.

            Kit came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him.  She buried her face into the back of his shoulders and sobbed.  Bucky stood still and let her, fighting to keep his own emotions in check.  Kit said something muffled into his back.

            “What was that?”  He carefully turned within the circle of her arms.

            Kit kept her face planted against his chest so that he could only see the top of her head, but tilted her chin farther down so that she could speak.

            “This is your room now.  It has been for awhile.”

            Bucky kept quiet, waiting to hear if there was more.

            “You’re a bully.”

            “Bucky the bully, that’s me.”

            “You’re asking me to change the way I see the world.”

            “You already made me change the way I see it.”

            Kit choked out that sound that wasn’t a laugh or a sob, but something that was also both.  “What if I can’t?”

            Bucky didn’t answer.  She knew.

            “I don’t want you to go.  Ever.”

            “Maybe I won’t.  The future isn’t certain.  But if you don’t try, and I mean really try, then it is.  I can’t keep living the way we currently are.  I just can’t.”  His voice betrayed him, breaking on the last word.

            Kit’s head snapped up to look him in the eyes.  “I’ll try.  I will.  Please don’t leave.”

            Bucky finally lifted his arms and held her in return.  “I don’t want to.  We’re fucked up, and clearly terrible for each other.  But we all do things we don’t want to, and we all do things that are bad for us.”

            Kit tucked her face into Buck’s neck and cried.  He held her and let her and nearly cried himself.  They just stood there, with nothing else to say, until Kit had gotten herself under control with a couple of sniffles.

            “You stink,” she informed him.

            “And what?  You’re roses?”

            She laughed, a weak sound, but it was there.  It was a start.

            “I should probably shower, huh?”

            “Probably.”

            “Care to join me?”

            “Not today.”  Kit seemed to see an adverse expression on Bucky’s face.  “I showered earlier and don’t want to have to dry my hair again.  I’m also not much in the mode for…” she trailed off.

            “No, I get it.  I do.  Don’t worry.”  Bucky didn’t like that he had forced Kit into a corner.  He could have easily poisoned the relationship.  While he was hopeful it was the kind of jolt needed to get them back on course, he also understood he could have permanently ruined things.

            Bucky kissed the tip of Kit’s nose and let his arms fall away.  Kit squeezed him once, suffocatingly tight, then released him.  She wiped at her eyes and face while taking a step back.

            “Will you be okay?” Bucky asked before heading to the bathroom.

            “Yeah.  Yeah.”  She kept pawing at her face.  Metal hands were not good for removing tears.

            Bucky reached forward with his right hand, the only one made of flesh between them, and wiped away a spot she had missed.  Her tears absorbed into his skin.

            “I’m sorry,” he told her.

            “I feel like _I_ might need to apologize.  I’m not going to though.  Not right now, anyway.”  She offered him a teasing grin.

            Bucky smiled back.  He kissed her again, this time on her right eyelid, and headed to the shower.

            Standing beneath the hot flow of water, his muscles quivered and weakened.  It had been hard to say those things to Kit.  Harder than he cared to admit.  He leaned heavily against the side of the shower, allowing the water to sluice over him.  The die had been cast, as it were, and now he had to await the outcome.

            He took longer to shower than usual.  After stepping out and drying off, he peered into the room from the stub hall before going into the closet.  Kit didn’t notice him.  She was working on the drone again, which Bucky hoped was a good sign.  She wasn’t crying and wasn’t feeling too emotional to work, although it could be that she was hiding within her project again.

            When Bucky had planned leopard day, as she came to call it, he had been hoping she’d open up to him about what had been troubling her.  It had worked, she told him, but that hadn’t made things better like he had expected.  She just stopped hiding how morose she was really feeling, and each day she seemed worse.  That morning, they had barely spoken, which Bucky felt was probably the final tipping point, where he felt he had to _something._   If she did decide to break up with him though, he had no idea what he’d do.  It definitely would involve several sessions with Dr. Khnel.  Maybe he _should_ push Kit to see the doc?  But she’d just get pissed at him.  Maybe there was a way to get Yen to finally get her to go…

            Bucky got dressed in the closet.  Kit had been right when she had said that this was his room now.  It was _their_ room.  He may not have had much stuff, but it was all in here now.  The only items remaining in his old room were the bright clothes he didn’t like wearing, and some useless scraps that should have been thrown out.  Even his chin up bar bridged the gap at the end of the stub.

            “We should do something tonight,” Bucky said as he returned to the main room.

            “Like what?”  Kit turned to face him whereas before she might have kept working.  Already an improvement, but whether that could last was the question.

            “We’ll eat dinner in the cafeteria whether Yen is there or not.  Hell, introduce me to some of your work colleagues and we’ll sit with them.  Afterward we’ll… We’ll go bowling.”

            “Bowling?”

            “I’ve only been once in my life, and you mentioned there was a bowling alley here somewhere.  Let’s go bowling.”

            “Yeah.  Yeah, okay.  We’ll go bowling.”

            It was still a bit early for dinner, so Kit worked for a little while longer.  No matter what problems Bucky saw in their relationship, Kit still had a job to do.  Not only was everything she needed provided for, but she was actually receiving a decent amount of pay on top of that, based on what projects she was a part of.  Bucky also bet that Kit felt a certain obligation to this place for giving her her eyes and hands back.  Bucky certainly felt an obligation to the place, which was why he couldn’t say no to virtually any job that T’Challa asked of him.  While Kit worked, he disassembled and reassembled his pistol a couple of times, and then coloured in his colouring book.  He had filled the first one, the one he had mangled, but Khnel had since given him a new one when he told her that he liked them.

            “All right, closing up shop for the day,” Kit declared, pushing away from the worktable.

            “Does it work yet?” Bucky asked of the drone.

            “It’ll fly, I just have to attach the camera rig.  That can wait until later though.”

            “If you say so.”  Bucky couldn’t help but suspect everything she said, wondering if it was honest or if she was putting it on for him.  Probably was putting it on.  Hopefully it could become honest again though.

            The special dinner that night was pizza, which excited both of them.  Pizza was rare, especially the kind where you weren’t forced to have weird toppings.  It was classic, greasy, North American pizza.

            “Ah, it’s so good.  So cheesy.”  Kit smiled as she ate.  They were in the cafeteria, but sitting alone because neither Yen nor any of Kit’s co-workers were there at the moment.

            “Is it as cheesy as me?” Bucky wondered before taking a huge bite.

            “Nothing is as cheesy as you.”

            “I’d challenge that fact, but I have no one to compare myself to.”

            “Trust me, you’re a cheese-ball.”

            “I could think of worse things to be.”

            After eating, they headed for the bowling alley.

            “Do you know where this thing is?” Bucky asked as they wandered the halls, holding hands.

            “I thought I did, but it’s starting to look like I may be wrong.”

            “I have no idea where we are.  I’ve never been to this section before.”

            “Well you’ve never been to the bowling alley, so that might be a good sign.”

            “I’m putting my faith in you that you’ll find this thing.”

            “I haven’t been there in years.  I only went once, and it was, like, my first month here.”

            “We could just ask someone.”

            “Where’s the fun in that?”

            So they kept aimlessly heading down hallway after hallway, climbing up and down stairs to get to other levels.

            “This is looking familiar, I think we’re close.  They really need to put up some signage around this place, or one of those ‘you are here’ maps.”

            Bucky forgot what he was going to say and stopped walking.  Kit took a couple more steps before noticing, the slight tug from their conjoined hands bringing her to a stand still.

            “What?” she turned toward him.

            Bucky pointed to what had captured his attention, the smile spreading wide across his face as he looked at her.

            Kit followed his pointing hand and blanched.  “No!”  She looked back at him with shocked eyes.

            “Yes!  We’re going!  It’s in two days, and we are so totally going!”

            “Please, no.”

            They had been passing a dancehall when Bucky spotted the poster beside the door.  Apparently there was going to be a dance.  A dance with big band music.

            “Come on, please?” Bucky squeezed her hand tighter.  “I can take you out for the kind of date I’m used to.”

            “I can’t dance,” Kit shook her head.

            “It’s not complicated.  I do all the leading.”

            “Ha!  I’ve seen swing dancing.  That… No.”

            “Okay, but please?  You can drag me to anything you want after.”

            “I don’t think there’s anywhere I’d want to go that I would have to drag you to.”

            Bucky thought he was going to lose this argument.  It seemed liked kismet, happening across this today, but if Kit really didn’t want to go, he couldn’t force her.

            “But…” Kit’s eyes travelled from Bucky to the poster and back.  “I guess.”

            “Does that mean yes?”

            “Yeah, we’ll go to this stupid dance thing.  Only because you had no choice about ending up in the future, and this is probably the closest taste you’ll ever get of back then.”

            “I love you,” Bucky grinned at her grumpy face.  While she still scowled, he planted a smacking kiss on her forehead that ended up making her laugh.

            “God, you’re like a fucking child about this.”  She pulled on his hand to get him to start walking down the hallway again.

            “I will make this up to you.  I promise.”

            “You’re sure as shit you will.”

            It seemed the dance hall wasn’t far from the bowling alley, for they came across it about a minute later.  It was more like what Bucky remembered than he expected it to be.  Apparently bowling hadn’t changed all that much.  This particular alley had five lanes on either side of a raised centre aisle.  On the left was ten pin bowling, while on the right was five pin.

            “Looks like we picked a good time,” Kit commented, tapping on a standee that listed league times.  This evening was free.  There was only one other person there, playing five pin by herself.  Across the space from the entrance was an alcove lined with bowling shoes as well as a list of rules to adhere to.

            “So apparently they haven’t changed the shoes,” Bucky commented as he looked for a pair in his size.

            “Wearing ugly, uncomfortable shoes is a part of bowling.  Remember that you picked this.”

            “I’m aware.”

            After changing shoes, both of them putting their boots in the emptied cubbies, they decided on ten pin bowling, choosing the lane farthest from the woman who was by herself.  This was when Bucky noticed the main change from his day: a touch screen was mounted to the end of the ball return, where players tapped in their names and their scores were automatically calculated and displayed.

            “Dang, there goes my plan to cheat,” Bucky joked as he picked up a couple of balls of varying weights from a rack.

            Kit tapped in their names to start the game.  When Bucky saw them, he had to laugh.

            “So which one am I?  McSexyPants or Bangin’?”

            “Obviously I’m Bangin’.  You’re up first McSexyPants.”

            Bucky had no idea which ball to choose.  They all seemed too light to him.  Last time he went bowling he remembered the balls being a lot heavier, but then last time he had been both younger and not a super soldier.  He decided to use the ball that best fit his fingers.

            “Don’t blow it.  This first ball is going to decide your whole game,” Kit teased, lounging on a bench against the raised middle.

            “I have no idea what I’m doing.  My goal is to not break anything.”  Bucky ended up rolling his ball very gently down the alleyway.  It knocked over only three pins on one side.

            “Wow,” Kit sarcastically commented.  She clapped her hands, a strange sound, especially due to the properties of the vibranium.  “We found something you’re not good at.”

            “That was a test shot.”  Bucky picked a second ball.  He knocked down more pins, but two managed to remain standing.

            “I was expecting a three hundred game.  I’m disappointed.”

            “Don’t worry.  My next game will be perfect.  You’re up, Bangin’.”

            Kit didn’t do any better than Bucky had.  Her first ball knocked down eight, but she completely missed with the second.

            They kept playing, making jokes, and teasing each other about any bad shots.  Bucky never got a perfect game.  He got close, but Kit kept finding new and creative ways with which to distract him.  It got especially bad once the other woman left—Bucky thought she went because they were too loud—leaving them alone in the alley.  Bucky suspected he nearly broke something with the wayward shot he took the time Kit managed to sneak up behind him and stick her hand straight down the front of his pants.  He had to play very on guard after that.

            They decided they were done after three games.  Both of them started to get a little too handsy for such a public space.

            Bucky put the balls away while Kit took off her shoes.  “Hey, check this out.”  When Kit looked up, he started juggling three of the bowling balls.

            “Oh my god, don’t drop one!” Kit squealed, laughing behind her hands.

            “Nah, I got it.”  He tossed the balls through a few more loops, then carefully caught them and put them away.

            “That was kind of hot,” Kit told him.

            Bucky grinned.  The comment almost made him want to do it again, this time with even more balls.  Almost.

            Once they were both back in their boots, Bucky crouched down.  “Come on, hop on.”

            “What?  Are you offering me a piggyback ride?”

            “Damn straight.”

            Kit giggled and clung to his back.  He hooked his arms beneath her legs and stood.

            “I like knowing this won’t tire you out at all.”  Kit nuzzled against the back of his neck.

            “Nope, it won’t.  I do plan on tiring you out though.”

            “Oh my.”  Her mouth was pressed against his skin so that he could feel the smile creep across her face.  She hoisted herself higher, forcing Bucky to shift his grip.  She planted her chin on the top of his head, her arms flopping over his shoulders.

            Finding their way back to their room was a lot easier and quicker than locating the bowling alley had been.  Some of the people that were still up and about stared as they want past.  Bucky and Kit certainly weren’t the only couple who lived in the facility, but Buck suspected that they were still the newest, and they were definitely the only one with so many obviously cybernetic prosthetics.

            Back in their room, Bucky kicked the door shut behind them, then swung Kit around so that he was carrying her in front of him.

            Even with her aviators still on, he saw the surprise on her face from the motion.  Holding her to him with one arm, he freed a hand in order to blank out the glass.  He then used that hand to pluck her glasses off her face.  When she kissed him, it felt like it had before.  Before they had crashed into a wall and Bucky was forced to say things he hadn’t wanted to.  It was good, that kiss.  They could still be good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Advertising my [Amazon page](https://www.amazon.com/Kristal-Stittle/e/B006NL1X4W) once again. I actually just had another novel accepted to be published in September, 2017, so I'm pretty stoked!
> 
> Also going to advertise my [Redbubble](http://www.redbubble.com/people/kristalstittle/) again, because I use that money to buy Christmas presents for my loved ones.


	17. Chapter 17

            Kit woke up, but pretended to be asleep.  She knew what day it was, and was dreading it.  Well, rather she was dreading that night.  She couldn’t believe she had agreed to go to a dance.  She knew why she had, of course, because she felt terrible for the way she had treated Bucky lately.  The thought that she had nearly lost him had come like a knife to her heart.  Even if he was going to leave one day, she didn’t want to bring that day sooner, and yet that was what she had been doing.  She had been wallowing, and so to make up for it, she agreed to go to this dance thing.  That didn’t change the fact that the idea of dancing terrified her.

            “You can’t sleep all day,” Bucky whispered into her hair.  It was a rare day when Kit woke up before Bucky, and he always seemed to know the moment she gained consciousness.  That morning, he had let her fall back asleep twice already, but it seemed a third time was not in the cards.

            “I’m sick.”

            “No, you’re not.  Come on, you have to get up.”

            “How do you know I’m not?”

            “ ’cause I know you’re just trying to get out of tonight.”

            “What if I actually got sick?”  She finally opened her eyes to study his face.

            “Then we’d stay here.  I’d get you soup, make you stay in bed, and let you be the big whinny baby I assume you become when you’re sick.”

            “Me?  A big whiny baby?”  Kit pretended to be offended.

            “You’re saying you wouldn’t be?”

            “Of course not.”

            “So if I asked Yen, he’d tell me you’re totally strong and independent, even while ill?”

            “Okay, yes, I’d be a big whiny baby but only because I know you’d let me be one.”

            Bucky chuckled and pressed his forehead to hers.  “So are you going to get up?”

            “Yes, I’m going to get up.”  But instead of actually getting up, she clung to Bucky as he did, letting him do all the work.  She would never get tired of running her hands across his skin, feeling the hard muscles underneath, or tracing the seams between the metal plates of his left shoulder and arm.  She took in the pure scent of him as he slipped away: cool and metal, human yet with a faint and odd touch of pine and wood smoke.

            Kit watched him walk away to the bathroom, then flopped back onto the sheets.  She curled up on his side of the small bed and pulled his pillow to her face.  Bucky had done the laundry yesterday, and it still smelled of dryer sheets along with his hair.  Kit let herself sink into the mattress and pillows and blankets.

            “You seriously fell back asleep?”  Bucky was shaking her foot.

            Kit raised her head.  She hadn’t been asleep, not quite, but had been balancing on the edge.

            “Bathroom’s all yours,” Buck told her.  He was dressed to go running, which he had started doing a couple of days ago.  She wondered how many laps he did around the track compared to everyone else.  “If I get back, and you’re asleep again, I’m going to have Yen come in here and stick you with adrenaline.”  He kissed Kit’s cheek and headed out the door.

            Kit finally got out of bed and headed for the bathroom.  She intended to take a shower closer to the dance, but still spent more time in the bathroom than normal.  For the past two days, when Bucky went to exercise or had an appointment with Dr. Khnel, Kit would hide out in her bathroom for several minutes.  This was her alone time, the time she allowed herself to cry.  She had told Bucky after the first time it had happened, the day after they went bowling, so it wasn’t a secret.  It allowed her to be upset about Bucky’s probable departure, without it consuming her whole day and poisoning their relationship.  It was her release.

            Once it was out of her, she was ready to properly start her day.  She got dressed and flopped into her chair.  Soon, she would start heading to the flight garage again in order to construct the new landing gear, but for now there were still a lot of simulations to run and follow-up fine tuning.  She was sick of the computer sims, and was looking forward to real world testing.  This testing in particular was going to be fun.  After basic stress tests, they were going to install the new landing gear onto old, decommissioned VTOLs, hook up a remote flight system, and do some testing that was as close to real world as they could get.  There was definitely going to be explosions for they were going to deliberately push the gear past its limits so as to know exactly where those limits were.

            When Bucky came back from his run, he had brought breakfast.  Not wanting to disturb her, he slid her food next to the laptop without saying anything, not realizing that running sims mostly just meant a lot of waiting on Kit’s part.

            “Do people stare when you run laps?” Kit asked as he took his seat.

            “Yup.  I shame virtually everyone on the track.  There are still a bunch who don’t care though and keep running.  A few will occasionally time me out of curiosity.  Basically everyone keeps to the inner lanes whenever I show up, leaving the outer most one for me.  Still running sims?”

            “Yup.”

            “Where does the outside testing take place?  Unless there’s a massive room in here that I don’t know about, I can’t see how you could perform the tests here.”

            “Field testing is the only time I set an alarm to get up early.  We all pile into a shuttle bus that takes us to a big cement pad out in the grass planes.  It’s nice to get outside, but I am not looking forward to how hot it gets out there.”

            “Would I be allowed to come if T’Challa doesn’t have anything for me?”

            “I’m not sure, although I don’t see why not.  It might even be useful having you around should we need any heavy lifting done.”

            “That’s all I’m good for, huh?  Heavy lifting?”

            “And taking care of leopards,” she teased.  “And me.  Thank you for bringing me breakfast.”

            “I felt if I didn’t, you wouldn’t end up getting any for yourself.  Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, you know.”

            “So some people say.”

            “One of those people being me, so clearly it’s correct.”

            Kit snickered and started eating.

            “I’m smart, you know,” Bucky told her as if she weren’t aware.

            “I know.”

            “I got great marks in school.”

            “Yeah?”

            “I was in the top percentage of all my classes.”

            “Brawn with brains, nice.  Is this your way of telling me you want to help with the thinking stuff?  Do some equations?”

            “Not really.”

            “Well I’ve never once thought you were dumb, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

            “All I’m saying is that I’m good for more than heavy lifting.”

            “I didn’t mean to suggest you weren’t.”  Kit was suddenly worried that she had actually touched upon a sensitive subject.

            Bucky grinned for her though, letting her know that everything was fine.  He was teasing her by making her think she had bothered him.

            “Jerk,” she grinned back.

            “But a cheesy jerk.”

            “The worst kind.  And yet a cheesy jerk I love for some reason.”

            They kept eating their breakfast and continuing with their pointless banter.

            “Do you plan to shower before the dance?” Bucky eventually asked.

            “Ug, please don’t remind me.”

            “Do you really not want to go?  If you hate the idea of it that much, we can stay here.  I don’t want to force you to do anything you don’t really want to do.”

            “No, I’ll go.  Complaining is just my way of preparing for it.”

            “It’s just a dance.”

            “I haven’t been to a dance since high school.  I haven’t been to a club or even a bar since college.”

            Bucky got up to pile his dirty dishes on top of Kit’s.  “But you’ve never been with me.”  He kissed her cheek.

            “Ew, smelly.”  Kit wrinkled her nose.

            “Even super soldiers sweat after a proper work out.”

            “And now this one needs a shower.”

            “Can I get a hug first?”  Bucky spread his arms wider than his smile.

            “I think not.”  Kit rolled away in her chair.

            “Aw, come on.  You can have my stink on you all day.”  Bucky slowly pursued her as she kept rolling away.

            Just before it looked like Bucky was actually going to scoop her up against his sweaty shirt, her laptop dinged to inform her that the latest simulation had completed.

            “Back to work!” she called out, rolling past Bucky and returning to her desk.

            “Your computer has saved you this time.  Next time, you might not be so fortunate.”  Bucky continued to point his wolf’s grin at her as he finally headed toward the shower.

            Kit tapped away at her laptop, studying the new numbers and trying to decide what other tiny tweaks should be made before construction.  She kept working all day, Bucky occasionally providing distraction when the sims were running, and fetching lunch at the appropriate time.  Today he was reading up on various influential people and kept sharing random facts he came across.  Some of them Kit knew, but others she didn’t.

            “All right, I guess I should get in the shower now,” Kit sighed when she finished running through the latest sim’s numbers and noticed the time.

            “We’re having dinner before we go, right?” Bucky double-checked.

            “Yeah.  We’ll eat and then head to the dance hall.”

            “ ’kay, just tell me when you’re ready.”  He remained lounging on the couch, his eyes on the tablet screen.

            Kit took her time in the shower, spending the extra minutes trying to psyche herself up for the dance.  She knew about the dance hall, but had never been.  From what she had heard, it was open every other Friday as a small nightclub.  She hoped that meant there was a bar, because dancing sober was extra unappealing.

            When Kit got out of the shower, she was startled to find something had changed in the bathroom while she had been scrubbing herself clean.  Her dirty laundry had disappeared, and clean clothes were hanging from the back of the door.  Obviously Bucky must have done it, sneaking in and out of the bathroom without her noticing.  The message was clear: he would like her to wear what he had picked out.  Kit was confused when she looked through the clothes, for they weren’t hers.  They were new, and nothing she had bought.

            Ignoring them for a few minutes, she started the process of drying her hair.  She didn’t want to get the clothes getting damp.  Once adequately dried, shaved, and moisturized, she turned back to the clothing.  Wherever they had come from, Bucky had picked out something she didn’t hate.  There was a pale blue, knee length skirt made up of several, jagged and flowing layers, but also a pair of black leggings that she could wear underneath.  Apparently Bucky figured out that she wasn’t terribly comfortable in skirts, probably because there were none, not even something floor length, in her closet.  For on top, Kit had been given something similar: a black tank top, and a wide collar, semi-transparent white T-shirt with a graffiti spray of colours across it.  It seemed that while Bucky was interested in dancing to old music, he had nothing against going in more modern clothes.  When Kit put it all on, she was surprised by how well it all fit.

            “Where did you get- Shit!”  Kit opened the door and was startled to find Bucky lingering in the doorway to the closet right across the stub hall from her.

            “Where did I get shit?  Not sure I actually have any that’s not in me.”  He was dressed in a nice pair of jeans, a clean white T-shirt, and a dark suit jacket she had never seen before.  “I suppose the answer would be from food.”

            “The clothes.  Where did you get these clothes?”

            “I bought them for you.  Well, I had Yen go to the store and send me pictures of stuff to pick out.”

            “So Yen bought them?”

            “I told him what to buy, and paid him back for it.”

            “With what money?”

            “You don’t think I got paid for leopard sitting?  Bought this jacket too.”

            “It looks nice.  How’d you know my size?”

            “Not only do I have a very good mental image of your body, but it’s not hard to snoop through your wardrobe when my own clothes are piled in beside yours.  Anyway, stop talking about the clothes.  Here.”  Bucky pulled his previously hidden arm out from behind his back to reveal that he had been concealing a bouquet of flowers.  “Usually I pick up a girl at her house, but I figured the bathroom would have to do in this case.”

            Kit laughed both in surprise and from the somewhat goofy grin on Bucky’s face.  “They’re pretty, thank you.  What kind are they?”

            “I honestly have no idea.  Some botanist Yen introduced me to sold them to me.  Said they should last pretty long in a vase of water, smell pleasant without being overpowering, and are fine with dim lighting.”  Bucky held out an elbow in Kit’s direction.  “Shall we?”

            “One second.”  Kit quickly filled up the sink with water and stuck the flowers in it.  “I’ll find something vase-like later.”  She looped her arm through Bucky’s.

            The walk to dinner was much shorter than Kit had expected.  She stepped out into the room and suddenly stopped.  A small table stood in the middle of the room where no table had stood before.  On either side were their two chairs, with pasta meals set before them, and a plain white candle burning in between.  Kit had to laugh again.

            “I stole the table from one of the communal areas, I hope no one minds.  It was a pain in the ass trying to find one that wasn’t coffee table height.”  Bucky walked Kit over to her desk chair and pulled it out for her.

            “Where’d the candle come from?” Kit wondered as she sat.

            “You have some sort of emergency box in the closet.  There was a whole bunch in there, I figured you wouldn’t mind if we used just one.”  He took his seat across from her.

            “No wine?” Kit teased, still amazed that he had done all this without her knowing.

            “I didn’t realize I couldn’t get any here until after Yen had come back, and I didn’t want to ask him to go out again.  I do, however, have this pitcher of delicious ice water.”  Bucky filled her glass for her.

            “When did you do all this?”  It’s not like they had known about the dance for very long.

            “It wasn’t too hard.  I knew Yen had planned a trip to the nearest town or city or whatever is out there for yesterday, so I just met up with him before he left.  He introduced me to the botanist at that point, and we arranged for me to get the flowers today.  The rest was done while you were showering.  I can run pretty fast you know.”

            “I recall hearing something about that this morning.”

            “I almost didn’t make it.  You were drying your hair when I came back with the food, and I still hadn’t gotten dressed at that point.”

            “So if I had decided I was clean enough and didn’t need to shower today…?”

            “All my plans would have been ruined, yeah.”

            “Is that why you tried to hug me when you were all sweaty this morning?  To make sure I had to shower?”

            Bucky laughed.  “No, I hadn’t thought of that.  Had I though, I definitely wouldn’t have let you escape like I did.”

            The food wasn’t any better than usual, but the overall meal was.  Kit found she liked the extra flourishes Bucky had gone through the trouble of putting together.  She never considered herself a romantic, but during that dinner, she was wondering if she should reconsider that.

            “Ready for dessert?” Bucky asked once all the pasta had been eaten.

            “There’s dessert?”  Kit hadn’t seen any other food in the room.

            “No good dinner is complete without dessert.”  Bucky got up from his chair and went to Kit’s mini fridge.  He ended up taking out a pair of her own Popsicles.

            “Ah, of course,” Kit smiled as she accepted the green one, her favourite.

            Buck had orange and didn’t bother to return to his seat.  He ate while leaning against the worktable.  They were both barefoot, and Kit ended up playing with her toes, running them over Bucky’s feet and fiddling with the cuffs of his jeans.

            “Neither of us are wearing our boots tonight,” Bucky told her.

            “Yeah?  You got us dancing shoes?”

            “Sort of.  I got us sneakers.”

            “So you know my foot size as well.”

            “I’m very perceptive.”  Bucky grinned as he stuck the Popsicle back in his mouth.

            Kit knew her boots.  They were so worn down that there was no way any sizing labels remained.  She was also pretty sure she would have noticed Bucky holding a tape measure up to her feet, although it seemed he wasn’t going to reveal his exact method of discovery this time.

            When the Popsicles were complete, they tossed them into the filled bathroom sink to rinse off any remaining stickiness.  Kit liked to save the sticks and build things out of them.

            The sneakers for her were blue, while Bucky’s were black.  They sat together on the couch and pulled on their shoes side by side.  Kit stuck her legs straight out to admire the new shoes.  She suspected she wouldn’t wear them much, but they were nice.  They reminded her of the shoes she had worn through high school and college.  Bucky may have been doing all this to create a bridge between his past and present, but he was inadvertently doing the same for Kit.  Or maybe not so inadvertently if Bucky was as observant as he often seemed to be.

            “When you’re done admiring your lovely legs, I believe it’s time to go.”  Bucky stood up and offered his elbow again.

            Kit sighed, but bounced up onto her feet and hooked her arm through Bucky’s. The dinner had managed to make her a little bit excited about the dance.  That, or she was bursting with nervous energy, which she was trying to pretend was excitement.  Maybe it was both.

            Kit plopped her glasses onto her face as they headed out the door.  Almost immediately she noticed someone looking their way.  She couldn’t tell if it was an unusual look, or if they were just glancing over because they entered the communal area.  Either way, Kit suddenly felt self conscious of her skirt and leggings.

            “You look great,” Bucky whispered to her as they walked.  She was fidgeting with the layers of her skirt.

            “I’m not used to dressing like this in public.”

            “Don’t think about being in public, think about being with me.  It’s just the two of us.”

            “Easier said than done.”

            “Yup.  But we’re both going to try.”

            She looked up at Bucky and finally noticed that he also wasn’t entirely comfortable.

            “Wait, where’s your pistol?”  She wrapped her arm around his waist, patting at his pockets in the process.  All she felt was a pen.

            “In a shoe box in your closet,” he answered, draping his arm across her shoulders.

            “This is the farthest I’ve ever seen you from it.”

            “Yup.”

            She held him tighter against her hip.  “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe.”

            “How generous of you.”

            As they got nearer to the dance hall, they came across other couples and groups and people on their own going to the same place.  A few had dressed to fit the theme of the dance, wearing clothes that belonged to Bucky’s era.  Most of the others were simply dressed in slightly nicer versions of what they usually wore.

            “You ready?” Bucky asked as they neared the doors.

            “Are you?” she replied.

            They entered together, passing through two sets of doors that had been blocking the sounds from flooding into the rest of the facility.  There wasn’t a full live band, but a few musicians were playing on a stage across the hall, adding to the music that was pouring out of the speakers.  A bar stretched across one wall while some tables were clustered up against the other.

            “Would you like some drink tickets?” a woman who appeared, to Kit at least, to have stepped straight out of the twenties approached them.  “Everyone gets two free, but the rest you have to pay for.”

            “Please.”  Kit readily accepted the drink tickets, and received a stamp on the back of her hand to say that she had, the women only hesitating for half a second when she noticed that they were metal.  Bucky got a pair of drink tickets as well, his stamp going on the hand that was made out of regular human matter.

            “I take it you’d like a drink first?” he asked.

            “I _need_ a drink first.”

            They went and exchanged tickets for beer, then found somewhere to sit while drinking them.  Kit had thought about getting something stronger with her free ticket, but knew that anything more than a beer would have her flattened in no time.  People were already dancing.  Some were following a set of steps that Kit didn’t know, while others were just doing their own thing.

            “Is it the same?” Kit turned to Bucky.

            “Not at all.”  But he was smiling.

            “Tell me what’s different.”

            He listed the expected things, like clothing, dancing, the actual construction of the room, and the quality of the sound.  But there were other things she hadn’t thought of.  Bucky told her how he usually spent his time at dances choosing a girl and then trying to pick her up.  The times he brought a girl, he had to take the time getting to know her.  With Kit, there was none of that.  He also didn’t have Steve with him, or any male friends for that matter.  There was less socializing between strangers, and when it did happen, it was generally more guarded despite the fact that everyone worked in the same place.  The atmosphere wasn’t as friendly, although Bucky admitted that that could be chalked up to his own changed perspective of things.

            “It also smells less.”

            “Smells less?”  Kit tilted her head to one side, trying to figure out what he meant.

            “No one here is smoking.”

            “Well that’s definitely an improvement.”  Kit tilted her beer back, swallowing the last dregs of the bottle.  “Should we dance?”

            “I don’t know, maybe we should have another beer first.”  Bucky was rolling his empty bottle between his hands.

            “Don’t tell me _you’re_ getting cold feet.”  Kit stood up.  “Come on, soldier, on your feet.  You dragged me here, so we’re not leaving until I’ve seen you dance at least once.”

            Bucky stood, a little reluctantly.  “You know I can’t get drunk, right?  That beer did nothing for me.”

            “Then get drunk on me.”  Kit took Bucky’s hand and led him onto the dance floor, pausing only once to pull him close and kiss him.  It was the first time they had done that in public.

            “All right, I’ll walk you through some steps at half speed,” Bucky said once they had found an empty spot on the dance floor.

            For the next several songs, Kit tried to learn how to dance the way Bucky was used to.  She was terrible at it, but they both just found that amusing.  She laughed, and mirrored Bucky whenever their hands weren’t joined, frequently off beat.  At one point, he just had Kit stand on his feet like a child and did all the footwork for the both of them.  Kit liked the slow songs, where she just had to lean against him and sway along to the music.

            “What do you say to another drink?” Bucky spoke in her ear, the place getting louder the later and more filled it became.

            Kit was sweating from the fast beat of the last song, its bass rhythm echoing her heart.  “Yeah, sure.”  She couldn’t stop smiling.  This was turning out to be a lot more fun than she had imagined.  And it was definitely due to having Bucky with her.  Not only was he providing extra entertainment, but she wasn’t worried about anyone around her.  Bucky didn’t need weapons to protect her from any physical danger—which she always worried about in crowds despite who made up this one—and she didn’t have to worry about strange guys coming to flirt with her.  She just got to enjoy the music and the company.

            After flagging down an increasingly busy bartender, they got two more beers with the last of their drink tickets.  All the tables had filled up with people so Bucky found them an empty space against a wall.  He leaned against it and Kit leaned against him.  They watched the other revellers together and drank their beers.  It had been so long since Kit had had any alcohol that the two beers were definitely affecting her.  She was a bit drunk, but the pleasant amount.  Anymore though might be too much.

            Listening to the buzz of conversation around them, they learned that the big band music wasn’t to last the whole night.  Once twelve o’clock hit, they were switching back over to dance and top forty, or whatever they usually played.

            “You ready to head back out there?” Bucky eventually asked, his empty bottle dangling from his fingers.  “I’d like a few more dances before the music switches over.”

            “In a minute.”  Kit’s bottle wasn’t empty yet.  She drained it, probably quicker than she should have.  “All right, let’s go.”

            They danced to every big band song that remained, and Kit ignored everyone but Bucky.  When the music finally faded and the live band members were applauded off the stage, Kit found she wasn’t quite ready to leave yet.

            “Let’s stay a little while longer,” she told Bucky.

            “Yeah?  And here I thought you hated dancing.”

            “But now I’m drunk.  Just a little while?”

            “I guess.  I don’t know modern music though.  I’m going to buy myself something strong first.  Maybe it’ll hit me better than the beer.”

            Kit hadn’t thought to bring money, but Bucky ended up buying her a drink with his.  He had a credit card and Kit momentarily wondered what bank account it was attached to, but then the lights dimmed, an electronic bass started to thump, and Bucky was handing her something fruity flavoured.

            “Hard liquor might be a bit much for me right now.”  Kit had to raise her voice and was taking a tentative sip despite her words.

            “I actually asked for something as weak as mine is strong,” Bucky leaned in to tell her.

            “Cheers!”  She clinked her glass against his.

            With the lights turned down, Kit was able to take off her sunglasses.  Bucky held onto them for her, putting them in his jacket pocket.  He seemed a lot happier about them hanging around longer once she had taken them off.  Or she thought he looked happier.  Her head was feeling a little fuzzy.  She was certainly happier.

            “Let’s go dance!” she suggested as the third round of drinks were emptied.

            “I don’t know how to dance to this music,” Bucky admitted.  “It just looks like a lot of jumping and grinding.”

            “That’s pretty much it.  Come on, I’ll show you.”  Kit grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the dance floor again, barely giving him enough time to find a spot to put down his empty whiskey glass.

            On the dance floor, within the thick of the mob, Bucky got a worried look.  He kept glancing at all the people around them.

            “Eyes on me, soldier,” Kit insisted, kissing him to make sure she had his attention.  “Move your hips.”  She placed her hands on his sides, encouraging his movements.  The longer they were out there, the more he relaxed he became, because he focused more and more on Kit.  She was having a great time, jumping and swaying to the music’s heavy beat.  She had forgotten how much she enjoyed dancing, the memories buried under a thick layer of social fears.  The alcohol had temporarily stripped those fears away and for several minutes she was free.

            But it couldn’t last forever.  Kit didn’t know how long she was dancing for, as one song blended into another, but eventually her body tired.  The room continued to tilt slightly, as the liquor had made its way from her stomach to her brain.

            “Time to go?” Bucky asked, having to raise his voice.  He sounded neither eager nor saddened by the idea.

            Kit nodded, which didn’t help the drunken spins.  Bucky placed his arm across her shoulders and led her through the crowd toward the exit.  Kit stuck close to his side, suddenly feeling a touch of paranoia.  Was it hers or his?  In her altered state of mind, both seemed possible.

            Pushing through the double set of doors, the music fell away behind them until it was a dull thump.  A group of three, having also recently left, were sitting in the hallway outside, laughing at some private joke.  Kit enjoyed the cooler air; she hadn’t realized how hot it was inside.  She swayed as they began their journey back to their room.

            “Okay, you lush, climb on,” Bucky said, kneeling down in front of her like he had when they left the bowling alley.

            Kit dutifully climbed abroad.  “I’m not that drunk.”  Her voice slurred.  “Or maybe I am.”

            Bucky stood up and carried her on his back.  She slumped across his shoulders, grateful to be off her feet.  He smelled really good.

            “No reading tonight,” she mumbled in Bucky’s ear.

            “Agreed.”

            “I think that was enough dancing for the next few years.”  Her head wasn’t feeling so great.  “Let’s not do that again anytime soon.”

            If Bucky had anything to say to that, Kit didn’t hear it, for she promptly fell asleep on his back.

 


	18. Chapter 18

            Kit looked ridiculous as she slept.  Her hair was splayed everywhere, and limbs were all akimbo, flopped around at odd and uncomfortable looking angles.  Bucky had managed to extract himself from her a couple of hours ago.  He had already exercised and showered, and was now making his way through a solitary breakfast.

            Kit had woken up a few times.  Her sleep had been very restless, but she always went back to it, even after her trip to the bathroom.  She had had too much to drink last night, Bucky knew he shouldn’t have bought her that fruity thing, but she had just been having so much fun.  After the awful corner he had backed her into, he wanted to keep that bright smile on her face.

            As for himself, he had enjoyed parts of the night.  He couldn’t let go of certain worries while being in a confined space with that many people, but he had been distracted plenty of times.  Even when the music was strange and the lights were shifting, Kit had drawn his mind out of his head.  Her dancing had gotten rather provocative toward the end, and Bucky found himself disappointed that she was too drunk for him to act on the feelings she had stirred up in him.

            “Nnnneeeerrrr,” Kit groaned and shifted beneath the covers.

            “Are you actually waking up this time?” Bucky asked her.

            “What’s that smell?”

            “A bunch of greasy breakfast food.  Would you like some?  Water?  Coffee?”

            “Coffee?”  Her head lifted off the pillow.

            “I got you the big size.”

            “I have to use the bathroom again first.”

            “It’s available.”  Bucky watched as Kit slid out of bed, straightening out her pyjamas that had twisted around her.  Bucky had had an interesting time getting them on her last night when she was half asleep and not much help.

            “I’m up,” Kit declared as she got to her feet, although a little wobbly.

            “Need any help being more than just up?”

            “Nope.  I got this.”

            Bucky remained seated while Kit went staggering past.  She had made it to the toilet once on her own already, so he trusted her to succeed a second time.  He waited a few minutes after he heard the door close, then got up and went to knock on it.

            “Yup?” Kit called from inside.

            “Do you want me to run you a bath?  You can eat in the tub.”

            “That sounds awesome, actually.”

            “Should I come in now or later?”

            “It might be gross if you come in now.”

            “I’ve seen five guys with diarrhea shitting over the same log after a night of very bad French wine that they had found.  Trust me, I understand what foul things the human body can produce.”

            “Yeah, but those were army guys.  This is me.”

            “I promise there’s nothing magical about you.  I haven’t put you in some mystical, inhuman bubble.  I wouldn’t like you as much as I do if you weren’t so human.  But if you want me to wait, I’ll wait.”

            Kit stayed silent for a few seconds, thinking.  “All right, fine, come in.  Bring the coffee.”

            Bucky brought her the water instead.  He didn’t care that Kit was on the toilet or what she was doing.  He just wanted her to feel better, to get past her hangover and back to normal.  After handing her the glass and flipping on the fan, he ran the water to fill the tub.

            “What?” he asked when he noticed her grinning stupidly at him while he tested the temperature.

            “This is very domestic of you,” she answered.

            “I’ve taken care of sick people a number of times.”

            “Yeah?  I didn’t think of you as a medic.”

            “Nothing like that,” Bucky chuckled.  “Stevie used to have some pretty poor health, and I’d help out at his place.  I’d help with my younger siblings too.  My mom always appreciated it when I ran baths or made soup.  And what do you mean by that domestic remark, as if this is the first time?  Who do you think has been doing all your laundry lately?”

            Kit just smiled at him.  Bucky removed the flowers from where they had sat in the sink all night, and placed them in an empty Mason jar he had found earlier that morning.  He set the jar down on the side of the tub for the time being.

            When Kit was done on the toilet, she stripped and climbed into the tub as it continued to fill.  Bucky felt a stirring upon seeing her naked body, but her obvious exhaustion kept him from making a move.  It wasn’t just the alcohol that was making her feel so terrible, but the extensive amount of exercise she had gotten by dancing.  Her body wasn’t used to it, and so her muscles were sore from the workout.

            “Your pyjamas reek of booze sweats,” Bucky informed Kit as he picked them up off the floor.  “I’m going to throw them in the hamper and get your breakfast.  Don’t drown while I’m gone.”

            “I will try my best, but give no guarantees,” she joked, sliding deeper into the water.

            Bucky removed the gross garments, bringing the Popsicle sticks with him, and collected the food tray.  By the time he returned to the bathroom, Kit had turned off the water, the excess flowing out through the overflow drain.  The tray was the perfect size to span the tub without touching the water.

            “Ah, coffee,” Kit sighed as she wrapped her hands around the mug.  She didn’t drink coffee often, but apparently it seemed to be a necessity for her after a night out.  Bucky made a mental note of that.

            “If you had gotten up at a more reasonable hour, it’d still be hot.”  Bucky sat down on the tile floor beside her, and took a strip of crispy bacon off the tray.

            “Bring my blow torch in here and it can be hot again,” she replied between sips.

            “I can totally see you doing that.”  He bit into the bacon.  “I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

            Bucky remained seated on the floor beside the tub, poaching the occasional piece of food from Kit’s tray.  She ate slowly, picking at small bites from a selection of different breakfast goods.

            “Do I have to work today?”  Kit rolled her head on her shoulders to look at Bucky.

            “No, it’s Saturday, you can take the day off if you want.”

            “Good.  I don’t want to look at sim numbers today.  Do you have to work?”

            “Not yet.  I’m still waiting for T’Challa to tell me when he needs me.”

            “I hope he never needs you.”

            “The world would be a better place if no one needed me.”

            “I need you,” Kit said rather morosely, but then brightened up again.  “How would I have filled this tub without you?”

            Bucky smiled for her effort.  “I meant that no one needed me to fight.”

            “I had a feeling you did.”

            “I should never have given you that fucking ultimatum.”

            Kit made some sort of confused sound with her mouth full of toast.

            “I can never tell anymore if you’re saying something because it’s what you’d say, or if you’re just saying it for me.”

            Kit flicked some water at his face.  “I always say what I want to say.  You always think you’ve done wrong.  That was the right choice to say that to me.  I needed to hear it.  For me, as well as for you.”

            “Still, I’m sorry for it.”

            “That’s allowed and I forgive you, just stop thinking you sabotaged yourself, or us.”  She flicked water at him again.

            “If you keep doing that, I’m going to have to come in there.”

            Kit giggled and sank her upper body deeper into the water, her knees poking out at the other end.

            Bucky twisted to rest his arms along the tub’s edge and look directly at Kit.  The tray was hiding her pelvic area from sight, but he could admire the rest of her.  Kit slid sideways in order to rest her head on Bucky’s arm.  She didn’t care that it was his metal arm, she only cared that it was him.  Bucky kissed the top of her head.

            “Are you done eating?”

            “Almost.”  She put a bit of egg and bits of bacon on a piece of jammed toast, and took a huge bite.  “Now I’m done,” she mumbled around the food.

            Bucky picked up the tray and moved it.  “All right, dunk your head.  I’m going to wash your hair.”

            “Yeah?”

            “You think I’d lie about hair washing?”

            “I think I’d like you to wash more than just my hair.”

            “That was the eventual plan.”

            Kit slid completely under the water to soak.  When she resurfaced, Bucky methodically rubbed shampoo into her hair.

            “Mmmm,” she sighed.

            Bucky leaned over the tub so that he could support her head with one hand while tilting her back into the water to rinse her hair with the other.  He was methodical, making sure her hair was properly rinsed before moving on to the conditioner.

            The water was cloudy by the time he got to the soap.  He started with her upper back and shoulders, then moved on to her arms.  He used the bristle brush to get into every crevice between the panels of her forearms.  Kit let Bucky manipulate her completely, watching his hands move over hers.

            Once her hands were clean, Bucky sat her up in order to wash her breasts.  She looked him straight in the eyes while he did it.  Bucky resisted kissing her.

            He then slid down the length of the tub to start on her feet.  She sighed again as he massaged them, working out the strain she had placed upon them the night before.  He continued the massaging up her calves, and then below the water to her thighs.  She bit her lip, expectant.  Bucky wasn’t going to disappoint her like he had been last night.

            Meeting those metal eyes of hers, he slid his hand along her inner thigh all the way up.  He watched her face open with the rest of her as he slid his fingers inside.  She leaned into his touch.  Never taking his eyes off her face, Bucky worked his fingers in and out.  He changed his motions based on her reactions, constantly keeping her guessing as to what exactly he was going to do next.  When she came, it was in her usual, silent way.  Bucky ran his hand over her belly afterward, as she relaxed and slid deeper into the water again, nearly submerging herself.

            “Was that your way of making it up to me?” Kit asked while breathing slow and deep.  “For agreeing to go to the dance with you?”

            “If you want it to be.”  Bucky still had his hands in the soapy water, running them over the parts of her he hadn’t yet washed beneath the surface.

            “If I say no, does that mean I can have something like that again later?”

            “You can have something like that again later no matter what you answer.”

            Kit sat up and sloshed her way through the water to him.  She draped her arms, still dripping, around his shoulders.

            “I love you, Bucky Barnes.”

            “And I love you, Kit Marcellus.”

            She grinned stupidly at him and he couldn’t help but mirror it.

            “Sergeant James Bucky Buchanan Barnes.  You have a very long name.”

            “When you say it that way, I do.”

            “Do you have any plans for today besides making me feel better?”

            “Nope.  Once you’re rinsed off, I was thinking we could curl up in bed and watch movies.”

            “How about a TV show for once?”

            “Sure.”  Bucky didn’t really care what they did that day, so long as they were doing something together.  “Time to rinse.”

            Kit slid her arms off his shoulders.  Bucky pulled the tub’s drain plug and turned on the shower.

            “Bye,” Kit waved at him as he dragged the shower curtain across.

            While she rinsed and then dried off, Bucky returned the breakfast dishes to the cafeteria.  When he returned, Kit was lying on the couch with the tablet.

            “Not the bed?” Bucky wondered.

            “Remember your laundry comment?  Guess what also needs to go into the laundry.”

            They ended up stripping the bed together and taking everything that needed washing to the laundry room.  Instead of heading back to their room, they ended up sitting side by side on the dryers, each holding a side of the tablet while they watched TV.  Other people came and went while they were in there, but left them undisturbed.  They stayed put until everything had been washed, dried, and folded, and then trekked it all back to their room.  If felt so very normal, which it made it one of Bucky’s favourite days.  They didn’t really do anything, but that meant there wasn’t really anything he could screw up.  He just made sure to avoid talking about certain subjects, and they made it to Sunday without a problem.

            When Sunday did roll around, Kit was back to work.

            “Other than when you’re hungover, do you ever take a day off?” Bucky wondered.

            “No, not really.  Not if I can help it.”

            “More simulations today?”

            “The _last_ simulations.  Tomorrow, I get to go to the hanger and start construction.”

            “And leave me here all alone?” Bucky jokingly pouted.

            “It’ll be a week of construction and installing the gear on old VTOLs and then the following week it’s testing time.”

            “I’ve never seen the hanger.”

            “Then come with me tomorrow.”

            “So I can do your heavy lifting for you?”

            “Of course.”  Kit grinned at him.

            “Well, I’ve got a meeting with Khnel soon, so I should probably get going.”

            “Probably.”

            Bucky got up from the chair he had been sitting backward on.

            “What are you going to talk to her about today?” Kit wondered.

            “No idea.  Probably how badly you swing dance.”

            Kit laughed.  She turned away from her computer so that Bucky could kiss her before leaving.

            While Bucky made his way to Khnel’s office, he wondered what he would actually talk to her about.  He could tell her about the dance, about the discomfort he frequently felt, but that wouldn’t be anything new.  He didn’t want to talk about how he and Kit had almost broken up.  That wasn’t something he wanted to bring up, especially with Dr. Khnel who disapproved of their getting together in the first place.

            When he reached Khnel’s office, he noticed that the door was partly open.  It caused him to pause, for Khnel had always kept her door either closed or wide open in the past, depending on what she was doing.  He walked up to the door and knocked, pushing it all the way open a second later.

            “Sergeant Barnes.”

            “T’Challa?”  Bucky frowned to find the king behind Khnel’s desk.  “Why can’t you just say when you want to talk to me instead of always using Dr. Khnel?”

            “Perhaps I like to surprise you.”

            “Khnel not here today?”

            “No, she took the weekend off.  She plans to take all her weekends off from now on, which is what she used to do.  She did ask me to inform you that you’re now her version of an outpatient.”

            “What does that mean?”

            “You no longer need regular therapy sessions.  The two of you will only talk when you request it.  Would you care to sit down?”

            “I’m fine standing.  So what’s going on?  I’m pretty sure informing me that I’m now an outpatient or whatever isn’t on your regular list of duties.  Is this about a job?  One that doesn’t involve zoo keeping?”

            “It is.”  T’Challa stood up in order to be level with Bucky.  “I’ve gathered some information about the group of poachers who have been raiding my lands.  There’s going to be a money exchange on Wednesday.  It’s to occur in a public place and my people will be there.  I would like you in the control room as an extra set of eyes, watching for anything we might miss.”

            “Of course.  Just tell me exactly where to be and when.”

            T’Challa relayed all the details that Bucky needed to know about the op.  Bucky listened, saving his questions for the end and committing the facts to memory.  When they were done, Bucky found himself looking forward to Wednesday.  He was glad he wasn’t going to be on the ground, he didn’t know if he was ready for something like that just yet, but he was happy to be putting his skills to use.  T’Challa told him that he’d be in a room, looking at monitors with some other techs.  There would be views from stealth cams that were built into eye glasses the soldiers would be wearing, three well-spaced out handheld cameras thanks to the area being as touristy as Wakanda got, and footage from a drone way overhead.  Bucky wouldn’t be able to talk to any of the operatives directly, but the techs would pass on any movements he requested.  Basically, T’Challa made sure there was someone filtering anything Bucky had to say.  Bucky would have set things up the same way.

            Kit was right where he had left her.  She was clearly bored with the sims, as she twisted back and forth in her chair.  Bucky watched her from the open doorway for a bit, this woman who lived in twilight lighting and set off sparks in his gut.  She was humming something.  It was quiet and it took Bucky a couple of seconds to realize it was one of the catchy songs that had played after the dance had become a nightclub.

            When it seemed she was about to turn around, perhaps feeling Bucky’s eyes on her, he stepped into the room as though just returning.

            “Hey,” she smiled, showing her small teeth.  “Anything interesting happen at Khnel’s today?”

            For a split second, Bucky thought she knew about T’Challa’s plot before realizing that she was just latching on to the first topic of conversation to enter her head.

            “Yeah, two things.”

            “Oh?” she was genuinely surprised.  Bucky didn’t tell her much about his visits to the doc.

            “Well, to start with, I’m being upgraded to outpatient status?  Apparently that means I only have to see Dr. Khnel now when I request it.”

            “That’s great!  Did she say what prompted the change or whatever?  Or is it just a general improvement thing?”

            “I never got a chance to ask.  She wasn’t there, T’Challa talked to me.”

            “Oh?”  Kit went from curious to hesitant.

            “Wednesday.”

            Kit nodded.  She understood what Bucky was talking about without needing to hear the details.

            “I was wondering if you could do something for me before then.”

            “What?”

            “You remember that I used to have a star here, right?” Bucky touched his left shoulder.

            “Of course, the red one.”

            “I was once told that you could tattoo metal?”

            “You want the star back?”  Kit was back to being surprised.

            “Yeah, although not the same one.  Can you make it white?”

            “Of course.  It won’t stand out as much as the red one did against that kind of metal.  It’ll basically just be a brighter patch.”

            “That’ll be fine.”  Bucky sat in his chair.

            “I just need to start this last sim and then I can do it.”

            “Hey, the last sim, that’s great!”

            Kit turned to her laptop to start it running.  “Can I ask what brought this on?” she asked while facing the screen.

            “I don’t know.  I feel… like I need it.  If I’m going to be doing this mission.  I don’t know how to explain it.  Like, I need it to remind myself that I _can_ do it, but it can’t be red.  A white star is more American so it seemed like the next best thing.”

            “I’m not sure I understand, because I always think you can do anything, but if it’s what you want, I’m happy to do it.”

            “You’re the best.”  Bucky leaned over and kissed her cheek.

            “Well I knew that,” she smirked at him.

            Once her simulation was up and running, she gathered the necessary tools from around the room.  Bucky stayed put, watching as she carefully drew up a stencil of a star at the right size, and snipped it out.

            “White is a difficult colour,” she explained as she got Bucky to sit sideways on his chair, his left arm hanging over the back of it.  “Green is weirdly easy, it takes to the metal rather well.”

            “How many metal limbed people are you tattooing that I don’t know about?”

            Kit laughed.  “You’re the first, actually.  I’m usually asked to do this to tag vehicles, or important components and pieces of equipment.”  She placed the stencil on Buck’s arm, making sure it was straight.  “Here?”

            “Yeah.”

            Kit carefully traced the outline of the star in marker.  She then turned to the worktable, mixed a few chemicals together into a small vial, and then loaded the vial into something that Bucky couldn’t decide whether it looked more like a pen or a gun.

            “Is it all right if I turn off some of the sensors in your arm?  I don’t know if it’ll feel painful or hot or anything as it uses a laser, and this way you won’t flinch involuntarily.”

            “I didn’t know the sensors could be turned off.”

            “Not easily in your case.  On my arms they’re more accessible since they were closer to being prototypes than yours.  It’s come in handy a few times.”  Kit took a tool out of her pocket.  Bucky had seen it before, she often had it on her, but he had never seen her use it.  It was a narrow tube of metal with a pinpoint on one end and slim hook on the other.  “You ready?”

            “Go for it.”  Bucky closely watched her use the tool.  She slid the hook between two panels in the forearm.  It was a weird sensation as she hooked onto unseen electronics and sharply tugged on some sort of latch.  She then repeated the action at the other end between the same panels.  One of the metal plates popped up a fraction of an inch.

            “Only this one does that,” Kit told him.  She flipped the tool around and poked the pointed end into tiny slots that had been revealed.  When she was done, Bucky’s arm had gone completely numb.  He could still move it, but he couldn’t feel anything.  It was strange and unpleasant, reminding him of when he didn’t have the arm.  That time had a lot of rough, emotional memories attached to it thanks to Khnel, but he bared with it.

            Bucky let his arm hang limp over the back of the chair as Kit set to work on the star.  There was a smell like bleach and burning plastic.  Kit worked methodically.  She broke down the star into ten triangles, two per point.  Starting at the end of each point, she carefully made her way down the triangle toward its base in the body of the star, the tool moving back and forth as though she were shading something in.  Starting with the top two, she worked her way clockwise around the star.  Bucky watched it form.  Kit was right when she said the white wouldn’t show up as much, but that was fine.  The star looked more like a shiny chrome spot on the metal as opposed to just white.

            “Do you want me to go over it again?” Kit asked once the star was formed.  “It’ll be more white with a second pass.”

            Bucky studied it as best he could.  He noticed that when the light hit it right, he could see the pattern that Kit had followed in making the star, the triangles and the back and forth motions.

            “No, this is perfect,” he decided.

            “I wouldn’t say perfect.  I’ve done better.”  She was also looking at the effect as she carefully wiped away what remained of the guideline.

            “The imperfection is what makes it perfect.  It’s more like me that way.”

            Kit smirked.  “If you say so.”  She tapped her little tool in Bucky’s forearm again, bringing back the arm’s feeling.  When she pressed down on the panel, it clicked solidly back into place.

            “Can I have one of those tools?” Bucky asked.

            “Sure.”  Kit grabbed him one while she put away the metal tattooing supplies.

            “I doubt I’ll use it, but I figure I should have one just in case.”

            “Of course.  I should have thought to give you one sooner.”

            “Have you ever thought about tattooing yourself?”

            “I wouldn’t know what to get or exactly where to put it.  That goes for real tattoos as well as the metal skin kind.”

            “You should get one right here.”  Bucky took hold of her hand to stop her scurrying about, and brushed his fingers over the inside of her wrist.

            “Yeah, but of what?”

            Bucky shrugged.   “Whatever motives you.”

            Kit stared at her wrist, considering.  “Maybe one day, but not today.”

            Bucky tugged her down onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her.  “I can tell you want to be upset.  Go right ahead.”

            “I don’t need your permission.”

            “You have it anyway.”

            Kit tried to be angry with him, but eventually she curled up on his lap and buried her face against Bucky’s chest.  While he was looking forward to getting back to work, to being useful again, he also knew it meant he was another step closer to leaving here.  To leaving her.  Kit didn’t cry.  She trembled and her breathing hitched, but Bucky’s shirt remained dry.  He held her tight until she stopped shivering.

            “What do you say we go the gym and play basketball or something?  Shoot some hoops?”  Bucky suggested.  He’d rather play something like baseball, but doubted they had a diamond here and knew he would most likely hit nothing but homeruns.

            “I’ve never played basketball with these hands.  Don’t know if my metal wrists will be an asset or not.”

            “We should find out.  What do you say?”

            “That you’ll probably crush me on the court.”

            “I’ll go easy on you, and we’ll find a way to handicap me.”

            “We probably shouldn’t let this turn into what happened when we went bowling.”

            “I don’t know, it might be an interesting show for everyone else in the gym.  So are we going?”

            “Yeah, why not?”


	19. Chapter 19

            _Eep, eep, eep, eep, eep, eep._

            Beside Kit, Bucky startled awake, sitting up and grabbing his pistol off the headboard in one smooth motion.

            “It’s just my alarm clock,” Kit mumbled.

            “I realize that now that I’m awake.”  He slid his legs of the bed.

            “Don’t turn it off,” Kit told him, hauling herself upright.  “I have to do it or I’ll go right back to sleep.”  She scrambled around Bucky’s side and got off the bed.  She had placed her clock across the room for the duel purpose of how easy it was to see the numbers while lying down, and because it forced her to get out of bed to turn off the alarm.  Once the infernal noise had been silenced, she stretched.

            “I’ve gotten used to having gone running by the time you get out of bed.  This is weird,” Bucky commented.

            “Well, you better get used to it.  At least for a week or so.”

            “The weekend too?”

            “No, not on the weekend.  The rest of the team is more rational like that.  We may have also blown up everything by then.”

            Kit headed for the bathroom, with Bucky following along behind her.  It had been a week since the sims were completed, and Kit had spent the intervening time in the hangar, helping to install the landing gear on the old VTOLs.  Bucky had had two surveillance missions during that time, and both had gone well according to him.  What ‘well’ meant, Kit had no idea.  Bucky wasn’t supposed to talk about specifics, and Kit respected that, but there were times when she wondered how much Bucky ended up contributing.

            “So where are we supposed to go to catch this bus thing?” Bucky asked after they had brushed their teeth and were getting dressed.

            “It’s called a shuttle bus, and it’s on one of the lower levels.”

            “In the zoo?”

            “No, higher than that.  Don’t worry about it, I know where we’re going.”

            Since Bucky didn’t have a mission today, he decided to come with Kit to the testing grounds.  Kit could tell he was excited, more excited than he had been the day of his first mission, because they were going outside the facility.  Bucky hadn’t left the facility since arriving, and had only gotten fresh air during his zoo days.

            The cafeteria was emptier than Kit was used to seeing it.  They picked up breakfast, as well as some water bottles and sandwiches for lunch.  While they ate, Kit carefully watched the time on her tablet to make sure they didn’t take too long.  Her body felt weird due to the early hour, but she knew she could fix that with a nap on the shuttle bus.

            Bucky carried her backpack for her as they headed to the elevators.  It held their food and water, as well as Kit’s tablet, laptop, a few tools, and some other supplies.  She likely wouldn’t need the more powerful laptop, but she was bringing it just in case.  Since the testing area was so far from the facility, it was a serious pain in the ass if you forgot something.

            “Oh yeah, I have this for you,” Kit suddenly remembered.  She turned Bucky around so that she could access one of the pack’s pockets.  “Here.”  She handed him a long tube of fabric.

            “What’s this?” he wondered, pulling at the stretchy grey material.  “Reminds me of pantyhose.”

            “It’s a sleeve to cover your arm.  While the sun won’t heat the metal too much it is reflective.  I learned the hard way how annoying having light flashing off your hands can be for both you and those around you.”  Kit pulled on her own, which were more like thin, elbow-length gloves.  For once she wasn’t wearing a long sleeved shirt outside of her room, but had her tank top on instead.  She also wore shorts, and a battered baseball cap bearing the logo of her grandpa’s old garage.  She hadn’t been able to find a hat for Bucky, but did have an extra pair of shades he could wear.

            They exited the elevator on a service level.  The walls and ceiling were bare rock, covered in pipes and ducts, while the floor was poured concrete.  Kit led Bucky through the warren to a wide tunnel where the shuttle bus was waiting.  The tunnel extended into darkness, cutting through the cliffs and gently sloping the rest of the way down.

            A few members of the team were already waiting on the bus, but Kit and Bucky had gotten there before over half of them.  They climbed aboard and claimed a pair of seats at the back.

            “Sunscreen,” Kit instructed, pulling the tube out of the backpack.

            “Smells gross,” Bucky told her.

            “Well, you’re wearing it.  I don’t care if you’re serum protected or whatever, I’m not letting you risk getting burned and ending up with skin cancer or something.”

            “I didn’t say I wouldn’t wear it, I just said it smelled gross.”  Bucky took the bottle from her.  “Turn around, I’ll put it on your shoulders and the back of your neck.

 He also made sure her face was properly covered, and she did the same for him.  Once the sunscreen was properly rubbed in, Kit settled into her seat and closed her eyes.  She ended up slumped against Bucky, basically asleep as the rest of the team arrived and boarded the shuttle bus.  When they started rolling, though, she found herself wide-awake.  Her mind had drifted to dark places while only semi-conscious, and her heart had ended up pounding.

            “You all right?” Bucky asked, noticing her sudden change.

            “Yeah.  Yeah, I’m okay, just startled myself is all.”

            The bus drove smoothly through the rock tunnel, headlights lighting the way ahead.  People talked quietly as they rode, discussing the weekend that had just past.

            “That’s a lot of rock above us,” Bucky commented.

            “It won’t collapse.”

            “You mean that you trust it won’t collapse.  A strong enough earthquake or properly placed explosives could take it down.”

            “Are you nervous?”

            “Not really, but I am wondering if there are more exits to this tunnel than just the one we came through and the one we’re heading toward.”

            “I don’t know.  I never really thought about it before.  I assume there would be.”  Kit found herself sitting more tightly against Bucky’s side.  She really hadn’t thought about the tunnel before, including how much stone was up there.

            “I’m sorry, have I made you nervous now?”

            “A little bit, yeah.  We won’t be underground much longer though.”  The tunnel portion of the drive lasted between fifteen and twenty minutes depending on the driver.  “The tunnel won’t collapse.  We’re in a very stable region as far as shifts in the earth are concerned.  Also, it would be very difficult to get in here without being a facility member.  Even if someone did, blowing up this tunnel would be pointless.  It’s not like it’s a super important entrance or exit, and why bother going through all that work to kill a bus load of mechanics?”

            “Yeah, I’m sure you’re right.  The tunnel won’t collapse.”

            Kit found that she was still unexpectedly nervous.  “I hate you.”

            Bucky laughed.

            A bright point of light marked the end of the tunnel, and the shuttle bus drove into it without a single problem.  They quickly found themselves following a winding road that threaded through a grove of hills and stumpy trees.  Less than a minute after that, they were cutting through a seemingly endless plain of grass.

            “Wow,” Bucky breathed.  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this much open space.”  He glanced backward at the swiftly receding trees and hills.  “Correction: I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much empty space.”

            “Great, isn’t it?”  Kit always enjoyed this part of the ride.  “It’s so different than the cliffs and the jungles.  The facility is actually situated higher above sea level than here, which I guess is why the climates are different?  I don’t know that much about that kind of stuff though.”

            “My knowledge of weather doesn’t extend beyond rock checking.”

            “Rock checking?”

            “If the rock casts a shadow, it’s sunny.  If it doesn’t, it’s cloudy.  If the rock is wet, it’s rainy, and if it turns white, it’s snowing.”

            Kit laughed.

            The bus travelled through the grass lands for another half an hour.

            “You have to ride this bus every day this week?” Bucky said, clearly commenting on the length of time that they were travelling.

            “And maybe next week too, both there and back.  It’s not that bad, there are other people with way worse commutes.”

            They finally reached their destination. The grass fell away, replaced by a large section of tarmac and a single, small hangar.  Sitting all over the runway, looking like steel eagles that might pounce, were the old VTOLs.  The pilots had worked over the weekend, testing the fly-by-wire systems to get them from the facility’s cliff face hangar to here.  It appeared the landing gear worked just find for regular, controlled landings.

            The bus stopped next to the hangar, and everyone disembarked.  It was like walking into an oven.  Stepping out of the air-conditioned bus meant being struck by a wall of heat.  Everyone paused for a second just outside the doors, their bodies needing a second to process.

            “So this is why you don’t work here very often, huh?” Bucky commented when he followed Kit out.

            “If you get dizzy, there’s a room in the hangar that’s kept cool.  We all have to watch out for each other for heat stroke.”

            “What are they doing?” Bucky asked of a small group bearing rifles who were fanning out across the little airfield.

            “Checking for snakes or predators that might be hiding in the grass.  Once we start up the VTOLs the noise should keep them away.”

            Their first task was to unload some equipment from a trailer the shuttle had towed.  Most of it was set up in the shade of the open hangar door, while a few pieces were brought into the chilled room.  Kit left her bag of supplies in there so that the water wouldn’t get disgustingly warm.  Bucky helped out the team, setting up tables and carrying computers over to them.

            “We’re good to go over here,” M’Tala declared once the systems were humming.  “Who wants to boot up the first VTOL?”

            “I got it,” Kit volunteered. She’d rather head out into the sun now, as opposed to later when the heat will have exhausted her.

            Bucky came with her, interested in the process.  Kit showed him how to start the engines and turn on the fly-by-wire system.  When the guys in the hangar gave a thumbs up that it had connected, Kit then performed a visual inspection of the craft, particularly the landing gear.  She was fairly certain this was one of the birds she had worked on.  The final check was to make sure that all the cameras were working.  They had placed two in the cockpit, one to look out the windscreen while the other was pointed at the instrument panel.  There was a camera above and below each wing, above and below the fuselage, and six pointed at the landing gear, both inside and outside the craft.  Those were the most important cameras, which would record at a very high frame rate, and in high definition.  Whatever happened, they would see it.  They would also get a variety of data from some finely turned instruments placed around the craft.

            “All right, the first bird is all set to fly,” Kit reported, happy to return to the shade.  A dozen lawn chairs were scattered about the hangar.  Kit and Bucky dragged a pair over to the open door so that they could watch without being in the way.  Several other mechanics who didn’t necessarily need to be out there joined them.

            Sitting before the most important system, one of their pilots for the day started the jets up.  She was surrounded by so much technical equipment, she was basically in a cockpit.  The VTOL rose straight off the ground, and then settled straight back down again.  First test complete.

            Several of the beginning tests weren’t very interesting to watch.  They were the ones completed in what would be considered ideal situations, what would hopefully be the normal method of landing.  Those tests provided a base line before they got to the harder stuff.  That’s when things got interesting.

            The pilot increased the speed of each landing, some straight down while others were at various angles.  The landing gear was tortured to the point of breaking.  It came with a shriek of metal and a thunderous snap.  The VTOL twisted and buckled into the pavement, crunching and folding in on itself.

            “Ohhhhhh!” the mechanics all called out as they watched the crash from a safe distance.  Several had brought binoculars.

            Once it was confirmed that there was no fire, they headed out to the site for a first hand look at the damage.

            “What do you do with what’s left?” Bucky asked as they investigated the ruined machine.  He came in real handy when a panel needed to be peeled back.

            “Later, trucks will come out and gather up all the scraps.  There are warehouses of old parts, which we recycle whenever possible.  Some of the wiring in your arm was once in something else.  I believe parts of your hand started life in a computer.”

            Damage photographed and flight recorder retrieved, they returned to the sheltering shade of the hangar.  Then the next VTOL was checked over and sent up, the process starting all over again.

            As the day wore on, everyone’s enthusiasm was sucked out by the heat.  They all still watched the hard landings, but a lot of the team retreated to the cool room during basic checks and landings.  The two pilots rotated, switching every other VTOL in order to prevent one of them ending up with heat stroke.

            “Fuck, it’s hot” Bucky slumped down in his chair, handing Kit one of the water bottles he had just retrieved.  “I’m the _Winter_ Soldier, damn it, I’m not made for this kind of heat.”

            Kit couldn’t keep the shocked expression off her face.

            “What?”

            “You just called yourself the Winter Soldier.  In a joke, sure, but you said it.”

            Bucky shrugged.  “I can’t keep rejecting that part of me.  Was I brainwashed?  Sure, but that was still me doing those things.  Those memories are still in my head.  I _am_ the Winter Soldier.  Maybe one day I can make that title not an awful brand, make it something people don’t have to be afraid of.”

            Kit took his metal hand in hers and squeezed it as tightly as her heart was squeezing in her chest.  She understood how big a step that was for his recovery, but it was also like being hit by a sack of lead bricks.  It was just another reminder that he would be leaving, and not in the distant future based on how things were going.

            “Oooooohhh!” the guys called out as the current VTOL twisted into a hunk of slag.

            Kit didn’t see, but it provided a good distraction from her thoughts.  Peeling herself off of her chair, she followed along with the rest of the mechanics to go check out the wreckage.

            By the end of the day, everyone was more than ready to get back on the shuttle bus.  Kit slumped into her seat as the air conditioning washed over her.  She leaned against Bucky as the bus made its way back to the facility.

            “You’ve been quiet,” Bucky observed.

            “I’m tired.”

            “Is that all?”

            “I’ve been dwelling again.”

            “I know.”

            “Then why ask?”

            “To see if you’d answer.”

            “Are you trying to go all Dr. Khnel on me?”  Kit turned her head to look up at him.

            “Maybe a little.  Talking helps.  Better than smothering it.”

            “First, I have to stop being sad and now I have to stop trying to be happy?”  Kit found herself getting angry.  That emotion still seemed to be open to her.

            “Look, I don’t know what to do anymore than you do.  I fuck up sometimes.”  Now Bucky was sounding defensive.  Thankfully, neither of them spoke loud enough for anyone else on the bus to hear them.

            “I don’t know what you want of me.”

            “I don’t actually want anything.  I’d like you to be happy.  Actually happy, without pretending.”

            “So it can hurt more when you’re gone.”

            Bucky sighed heavily.

            “What?”  Kit sensed he had something more to say.

            He shook his head.

            “What?” Kit insisted.

            “You’re…”

            “I’m what?”  Kit sat up straight in order to look him in the eye.

            “Afraid.  You’re so afraid of loss that you’re willing to live without.”

            Kit felt a soft heat spread out of her guts.  She was all too aware of where she was: trapped on a moving bus with a bunch of people she never wanted to cry in front of.  She wiggled in her seat, unable to go anywhere.

            “I can see you trying to run away right now,” Bucky continued.

            It felt like Kit’s bones were vibrating.  Her skin was too tight.

            “This isn’t a confrontation.  You’re safe.”  Wrapping his arms around her, Bucky pulled Kit tightly to him.

            Kit thought she was going to throw up.  It was hard to breathe.  There was this feeling welling up inside her, as though everything were trying to push outward.

            “It’s okay to be scared.”

            A hiccuping gulp of air burped its way out of Kit’s throat.  She smothered it with one hand, and then buried her face against Bucky’s chest, nearly breaking her sunglasses in the process.  The tears had come again.  Bucky stopped talking.  For the rest of the ride, he just held Kit to him.  She didn’t know how to rein in what was coming out of her.  She muffled any sounds that tried to escape, determined to not have anyone else on the shuttle bus notice.  At one point, she found herself biting Bucky, her teeth locked onto a small chuck of his flesh through his shirt.  The pressure on her jaws felt good, and a part of her was blaming Bucky for this and was glad to feel him flinch.  She blamed him for his eventual departure.  She blamed him for even showing up here in the first place, for causing their paths to cross.  Why did she have to fall in love with _him?_

            When Kit managed to settle down, when she no longer felt like exploding, they had reached the tunnel.  She watched the darkness slide past the window, her head resting against Bucky’s chest so that she could hear his heartbeat.

            “Sorry I bit you,” she eventually told him.

            “Sorry I gave you a reason to.”

            “You’re just trying to help.  It’s what you do.”

            “I apparently suck at it.”

            “Yeah, sometime you do.”

            “Better than always.”

            “Better than always,” Kit agreed.

            The shuttle bus continued on its way through the tunnel.

            “We grabbing dinner as soon as we’re back?” Bucky asked.

            “That’s what I figured we’d do.”

            “Anything you want to do afterward?”

            “Shower, for one.  Why?  You have a plan?”

            “No.”

            “Are you coming with us again tomorrow?”

            “If you’ll have me.”

            “Always.  Better than always.”

            After getting back to the facility, eating, and showering, Kit was feeling normal again.  She and Bucky spent the night relaxing, and then went to bed.  The alarm was set for early the next morning, but Kit found herself unable to sleep.  Her body was exhausted but her mind was humming.  Moving slowly, trying to keep from waking Bucky, she picked up her tablet off the charger on her headboard.  She had finally come to a decision, but she needed to do some research first.


	20. Chapter 20

            Bucky found himself being brought to a level of the facility he had never been to before.  Beside him stood T’Challa, who hadn’t yet informed him of exactly where they were going.  Someone, likely one of the T’Challa’s assistants, had left a message for Bucky just outside of Kit’s room, informing him not to go out to the testing field today.  He was fine with that.  After three days in a row of intense heat and sunlight, he was actually glad to have a reason to stay inside.  He had walked with Kit to the shuttle bus that morning, but then had returned to the bedroom once it had driven off.  While for the past two days Kit had seemed better, less sensitive to topics she feared, Bucky thought the day apart might be a good break.  For both of them.

            The elevator doors opened and T’Challa led Bucky through them.  Buck studied the neutral walls and unadorned doors that they passed.  He knew that on the level above them was the cliff-side hangar.  He could feel a faint tremor as something large rolled overhead.

            When they reached wherever it was that they were going, T’Challa opened a door that looked like all the rest and went inside.  Bucky wondered if he’d be encountering leopards again on the other side, or if this was a different kind of control room than the one he was used to.  What he didn’t expect was the extensive weapons cache.  The walls were lined with pistols, rifles, and shotguns, as were several racks in the middle of the space.  Drawers were labelled with various types of ammunition.

            “I thought it was time you finally have a proper holster for that pistol you’ve been carrying,” T’Challa told him.  “And perhaps some bullets should you pass the shooting test.”

            “I’ll pass it.”  Bucky walked around the room, studying the different armaments.  All the basics were covered, but he came across a few weapons he didn’t completely recognize.  They were like his Glock, in that a close inspection revealed them to be not quite the same as what they first appeared to be.

            “I understand you were a sharpshooter in the war.”

            “You understand right.”

            “Feel free to pick any weapon you’d like to try out.”

            “You want to know just how well I can shoot.”

            T’Challa simply smiled at him.

            Bucky picked out a few weapons.  He chose an assault rifle, a sniper rifle, and a shotgun to go along with his pistol.  All the weapons he decided on were the ones he was unfamiliar with, the ones that were Wakanda modified.  Might as well become familiar with them now.

            As Bucky selected a thigh holster for his pistol, T’Challa gathered up a few boxes of the appropriate ammo.  The two of them passed through another door at the back of the room.  This second room was much smaller, containing nothing by eye and ear protective gear, as well as stacks of targeting dummies.  Through a third door, Bucky could hear an active shooting range in use.  Both he and T’Challa picked out a pair of plastic eyewear and sound suppression headphones.

            The range burrowed through the rock, away from the door through which they entered it by.  Sound absorbent material dotted the walls so as to keep the echo down.  Two shooters were firing with their backs to the men as they entered.  Bucky was mildly shocked when he recognized one of them as Khnel.  She stood in an A-frame stance, her aim steady as she pumped rounds from a semiautomatic pistol into the target ahead of her.  When the magazine emptied, she ejected it and checked the breach before glancing over her shoulder.  The other man was an unknown, but he also walked over when he spotted T’Challa and Bucky.

            “You have good grouping,” Bucky complimented Khnel once she pulled down her ear protectors.  He could see the stiff cardboard target past her shoulder, where all the holes were centre of mass.

            “Thank you.  I like to keep in practice.”

            “You should see her with a spear,” T’Challa said with a sly grin.  “Bucky, I’d like you to meet the man in charge of training my armed forces, General Ot’ega.”

            “General.”  Bucky stood up straighter, unsure whether he should salute, and trying to keep the question out of his voice: why was a general training men as opposed to leading them?

            “His Majesty likes to call me general, but I am, in fact, not one.”  Ot’ega gave T’Challa a pointed look, which the king ignored.  Ot’ega did not offer up his actual rank.

            “I’m guessing you’re all here to watch me use some fire arms.  Why don’t we get to it?”  Bucky made his way over to one of the shooting stalls.

            Ot’ega set up a target for him, maybe thirty feet away.  Bucky started with the pistol.

            “What do you want me to hit?” he asked.

            “Go for head shots,” Ot’ega told him.

            “Under these conditions, too easy.  I’ll go for eye shots.”  Bucky put on his protective gear, prompting the others to do the same.  He fired off the entire magazine in rapid succession, alternating which ‘eye’ he was shooting at with every bullet.  His aim wasn’t perfect, he couldn’t plant every bullet in the exact same position, but at that range, they all hit within or along the orbital ridge.

            He felt nothing while shooting.  No anger, no fear, no remorse, no joy, no excitement.  No confusion.  His entire being became focused between him and the target.

            “Good?”  Bucky pulled down his ear-wear.

            Ot’ega was nodding, T’Challa was grinning, and Khnel had no reaction what so ever, which was normal.

            Ot’ega set up a few more targets.  He had Bucky burn through a couple more magazines for the pistol, as well as a few for the assault and sniper rifles, and several shotgun shells.

            “We should bring him to the sniper range,” Ot’ega said to T’Challa.  “Have him perform a proper test.”

            “Yes, but not today.”

            Bucky knew what they meant.  The indoor range was only so long, and lacked the challenges of extreme long distance sniping: wind, gravity, and the curvature of the earth.  Also, while they had him fire at some moving targets, there was no way to simulate the true nature of battle.  The targets never shot back, or did the unexpected things that humans sometimes did.  Not to mention the fact that Bucky was standing in place.  Shooting on the move was harder.

            “So have I met your standards in order to be properly armed again?” Bucky finally asked after checking that the breach was clear following his last mag.

            T’Challa looked to Khnel for an answer.

            “I believe you’re well enough to have a clip.”

            “This pistol takes magazines, not clips.  There’s a difference.”

            Khnel actually smiled.  “I’m aware.”

            “Do you always test everybody every chance you get?” Bucky wondered of the head doc.

            “She does,” T’Challa answered.  “And now that you’re certified, I have a new job for you.  You’re going to help General Ot’ega train my elite squad.”

            “Need some shooting pointers, huh?” Bucky turned to the not-general.

            “We’ll take anything you’ll teach.  Shooting, hand-to-hand, evasion techniques.  Whatever you know, we want to know.  It’s not every day we have a world class assassin and war hero whose brain we can pick over.”

            Bucky could see why Khnel had come.  Not just to watch his reactions while shooting, but to see how he’d handle Ot’ega.  Either the man knew nothing about Bucky’s mental state, or he knew and didn’t give a shit.  Bucky was guessing the latter.  A man who trained soldiers wouldn’t care about something like emotional triggers, in fact he’d stomp all over them given the chance.

            “I’ve only ever taught boxing before, but I’ll see what I can do.  Tell me where to be and when.”

            “Perfect,” T’Challa said.  “Ot’ega is still in charge of the training, you’ll work with him to set up a schedule.”

            “Am I going to be their only instructor?  Because I remember many nights of having a staff sergeant burst into my bunk, barking orders and getting us to haul ass at four o’clock in the morning.  I’m not looking forward to doing that to someone else, especially since I’m going to keeping living upstairs which I suspect isn’t near the barracks at all.  I’m also not a fond of the idea of bullying people through PE.”

            “These men have already gone through all the basic training and have been proven in the field.  They have their own sergeant who will handle any needed discipline, but who will take your orders.  They have a set regimen when not on mission, but you’re free to change it, provided you clear it with me first.”

            “Good.  How about you start by bringing me up to speed on what training they’ve already had?”

            “It seems that the two of you will get along just fine,” T’Challa spoke up.

            “I’m guessing you need to get back to work again.”

            “Always.  Please clean and return the weapons when you’re done with them, and feel free to take a magazine for your pistol.”

            “No problem.  Thanks for finally trusting me with bullets.”

            “As long as you don’t plan to fire them in my direction again.”

            “Hey, you started it.”

            Ot’ega let a mildly disturbed and confused look cross his face.  Neither Bucky nor T’Challa decided to fill him in.  Khnel remained as impassive as ever.

            After Khnel and T’Challa had gone, Bucky carried the weapons he had used over to a table along the back wall, which had cubby holes full of cleaning supplies above it.  He stripped and cleaned each weapon while Ot’ega filled him in on the information he needed.

            “Not sure how much I’ll be able to teach them,” Bucky realized after learning about their extensive training as well as the kinds of missions they had gone on.

            “We won’t know unless we give you the chance.”

            “Fair enough.  Is there somewhere we can make up a schedule that isn’t the firing range?”  Bucky had finished cleaning the weapons while Ot’ega spoke, and they were ready to be put away.

            “I have an office.”

            After returning the weapons to their correct locations among the racks, Bucky followed Ot’ega to another room on the same floor.  If his assumption was right, the other doors probably led to the offices of other military officers, maps rooms, meeting rooms, and storage facilities for weapons that wouldn’t be appropriate for the firing range: RPGs, grenades, C4, and the like.  If the control room was the nerve centre of T’Challa’s military operations, this level was likely the heart and lungs that kept it running.  He wondered if the barracks were also located somewhere on this level or if those were housed elsewhere.  Bucky found it interesting that the country housed such a large military force and its main scientific research centre in the same massive building, but then sciences improved the military which in turn provided security of the sciences.  Bucky thought about asking which king had first begun constructing this place the next time he got to talk to T’Challa.  Maybe it had always been here as a cave system, and had expanded gradually over time.

            Ot’ega’s office was what Bucky expected of it.  Good solid furniture, a few military accommodations and pictures of Ot’ega with T’Challa and T’Chaka on the wall—one of which had T’Challa in his Black Panther armour—and some maps of the facility, surrounding area, and country.  What Bucky didn’t see anywhere, was anything that indicated the man’s current rank, or anything to suggest he had any army buddies.

            Ot’ega sat in the office chair on the far side of the desk, gesturing that Bucky should take one of those opposite.  With slight amusement, Bucky noticed that the chairs for visitors were the same as the chair he frequently sat upon in his room.  After turning on his computer and typing in no less than three passwords, Ot’ega brought up a schedule on the screen.  Bucky noticed that even after the multiple layers of security, some of the time slots were blacked out for unknown, undisclosed purposes.  Missions, in other words.

            “All right, where do you want to start?” Ot’ega asked.

            Bucky spent the next several hours in the office, working out a plan.  They scheduled it as best they could with the understanding that missions of a certain importance took precedence should they come up.  By the time they were done, Buck was starving, lunch long since passed and missed.  They had worked out a two week plan, starting on the coming Sunday, and would see how things went from there.

            “So we’ll see you on Sunday,” Ot’ega said, rising from his chair and holding out a hand toward Bucky.

            Bucky stood and shook it.  “See you then.”  He left the office alone, as Ot’ega returned to his seat, doing whatever it was he did most of the day.  Making his way back through the empty, plain, incredible sameness of the hallways, he didn’t happen upon a single living thing.  Or really any nonliving things other than the drywall and doors, none of which were open.  Just before reaching the elevator bank, Bucky began to wonder if they had hid the super soldier blood tests down here.  It certainly seemed like a good place for it.

            Knowing that Kit would be back for dinner, which wasn’t terribly far off, Bucky only grabbed a snack on his way back to the room.  Once there, he didn’t know what to do with himself.  Kit had taken both her laptop and tablet with her, leaving nothing for Bucky to do his usual research on.  Not wanting to draw or colour, he tidied up the room, but it didn’t need much cleaning.  He threw his rubber ball around for a bit, but that was entertaining for only so long.  Eventually, he got into Kit’s stash of old Popsicle sticks and began piling them up into little structures.  He knew where the glue was, but he wasn’t about to go wasting Kit’s Popsicle sticks without asking.

            When Kit finally walked through the door, exhausted, sweaty, and sporting some new grease stains, she found Bucky sitting sprawled all over the couch, and staring at the ceiling.

            “Hey, you’re back!”  He sprang upright, quickly moving to take her bag for her.  “How’d it go today?”

            “Same as the other days,” she shrugged.  “There was a notable lack of your usual commentary.  How went your meeting with T’Challa?”

            “Good.  We went shooting.  I’m allowed to open carry and have bullets in my gun.  So don’t touch my gun.”

            “Never planned to, but good to know.  Have you eaten yet?”

            “I was waiting for you.  Have you eaten?”

            “No, not yet.”

            “Great, let’s get going, I’m starved.”

            “I need to rinse first, can you give me like five minutes?”

            “Of course.”  Bucky followed her toward the bathroom.  He knew he had to tell her about his newest job assignment, but was worried about how she would take it.

            “Bored without me?” she commented, pointing to the tall structure of Popsicle sticks.

            “Extremely.”

            “You could try meeting more people, you know.”  She entered the bathroom alone, where she started to strip out of her clothes.  “Your Wakandan is good enough now that you’re not limited to just those of us who know English.”

            Bucky hung around just outside the partially open door in order to keep himself from jumping her bones.  “Hey, so something else happened today.”

            “Oh yeah?  What’s that?” she called out over the sound of the running shower.

            “I’ve been given another new job.  It starts on Sunday and lasts two weeks.”

            “Yeah?  What’s it entail?”

            “I’m going to be teaching what I know to some of T’Challa’s elite soldiers.”  Bucky winced, waiting for the awkward silence and listening for an odd inhalation over the rushing water.  There was neither.

            “You’ll be great at that,” Kit replied almost immediately.

            “Glad you’re onboard with the idea.”  Bucky didn’t know whether to take this change in the usual order of things as a good sign or an awful one.

            “Yeah, I’m sure you could teach them some stuff.  And it might be good for you to be around some military guys again.”

            What was going on?  Had Kit been replaced by a pod person?  Or worse, had she been brainwashed?  But then who would have brainwashed her?  And why?  Khnel certainly seemed capable, but Kit wouldn’t be receptive to that idea, and there was no way the doctor could have done it forcibly in so short a time.  And again, _why_ would she do that?

            “Earth to Bucky.”  Kit had finished rinsing herself off and now stood in the bathroom doorway, her body wrapped in a towel.

            “Sorry.  Thinking.”

            She silently looked at him for a few seconds before saying “Well, you’re blocking me from getting to the closet.”

            “Right.  Sorry.”  He stepped to one side.

            “I joined a group,” Kit said as she passed him and disappeared into the closet.

            “What?”

            “A group.  An online group.  It’s for spouses of military personnel who are fighting out of country.  It’s multinational, so no one ever says anything specific for security reasons.  I checked it out, and have found it’s a pretty good place for me.”

            “Yeah?  Like a help group or something?” Bucky wondered.

            “Or something.  There’s a couple different forums for different stuff.”

            “Including one about spouses leaving soon?”

            “Yup.”  Kit stepped out of the closet, dressed in fresh clothes.

            “And it helps?”

            “It’s helping.  There’s this one guy and these two women that I like in there.  I haven’t posted any messages yet, and I’m not sure I’m going to, but just reading how other people deal with this kind of thing, how they feel about it…  I don’t know.  It makes me feel better somehow.”

            “Whatever works.”  Bucky placed his hands on her hips and pulled them against his.

            Kit tilted her face up and kissed him on the nose.  “I have something for you.”

            “Oh?  For me?”  His hands slid around to her back.

            She gave him a wry smile.  “That’s for later.  No, I made you something.”  She slipped from his hold and left the stubby hallway.

            Bucky stayed there for a few seconds longer, listening as she dug through a cupboard while he processed what she had told him.  So she had finally found someone to talk to.  Well, she wasn’t talking to them yet, but the option was there.

            When Bucky walked into the room, he found Kit placing a metal box on the desk.  He knew the box was full of old, burnt out, and broken circuit boards from his earlier snooping.  While he watched, she shifted through the circuit boards, digging down to the bottom of the box.  Bucky hadn’t looked that thoroughly under the circuit boards, assuming they were the only things in there.

            “I actually made this for you quite awhile ago.  I’m surprised you never found it,” Kit said as if reading his mind.

            “I never looked that deep.”

            Kit located what she was searching for and plucked it from the box.  It was small enough to hide in her hand.  “I made them out of the left over titanium from when I built your arm.  I was going to give you them when you left here, but considering you’re going to be training some military guys, I figured it’d be appropriate to give you them now.”

            Bucky was really curious now.

            When Kit held out her hand and opened it, a pair of dog tags dropped from her fingers and hung there from a chain.  Bucky accepted the gift from her, and read what had been engraved upon them.  The first one bore his full, legal name on one side, and BUCKY on the other.  The second tag only said WINTER SOLDIER.

            “I wasn’t sure what to put on that one,” Kit said about the second tag.  “I wrote that on there after you said you were okay with the title.”

            “When?”

            “When you went to get us dinner the other day.  It didn’t take me long.  As long as you have those, you shouldn’t forget who you are again.  Do you like it?”

            “Always.”

            “Better than always?”

            “Better than always.”  He just kept looking at the letters.  He had never expected a gift like this, and his brain was still trying to catch up in order to produce a proper thank you.

            “Here.”  Kit took the tags back and spread the chain with her fingers.  She looped it over his head so that the dog tags came to rest against his chest.  “Now you look like a proper soldier.”

            “I don’t know what to say,” Bucky eventually admitted.  He immediately picked up the tags to look at them again.

            “You don’t have to say anything.  But you do have to come with me to get dinner.  I’m starving.”  Kit took his hand and led him in halting steps toward the door.

            As they went out into the hallways, he finally let the tags fall to rest.  He could always look at them again later.  Right now, he needed to wrap his arm around Kit’s waist while they walked.

            “So if this forum is for spouses, does that mean we’re now married?” Bucky teased.

            Kit shook her head.  “Hell no.  We have not known each nearly long enough to bring up such a thing as marriage.  While it’s mostly spouses, significant others are also welcome.”

            While spoken in a light tone, Bucky thought Kit reacted overly negative toward the idea.  Not that he was actually thinking about marriage at all.  He filed away her reaction in his mind.  Maybe he’d ask about it later, when they were in private.  He knew that Kit thought she would make a bad mother, and he assumed such thoughts were related to the distant relationship she had with her own mom, but they had never discussed the concept of marriage before.  Maybe she didn’t believe in it.  Bucky had been learning that such beliefs were relatively more common in this age, although not everyone was accepting of them yet.  Or he could just be misreading her response.

            “Which VTOL suffered the most damage today?  Any explode?” Bucky decided to change topics.

            Kit gave him a more detailed breakdown of the day’s events.

***

            For the rest of the week, Bucky accompanied Kit out to the testing grounds.  He helped prep the VTOLs, pried out their black boxes from bad wrecks, dragged around scrap, and generally sweated like a pig.  But he enjoyed himself.  He had gotten to know the mechanics and pilots, most of whom had interesting personal histories, weird ideas about things, and/or were funny as hell.  On the Friday, the pilots even showed him how the fly-by-wire controls worked.  He picked it up rather rapidly, to the point where they let him fly one around for a bit before deliberately smashing it into the ground.

            Kit had the Saturday off, which meant that Bucky did as well.

            “Do you want to go swimming?” Kit asked after they had spent the morning just lounging around and having some exceptionally good sex.

            Bucky shrugged.  “Sure, why not.  I think one of the pairs of shorts I was given are swim trucks.”  While Bucky had moved all the shorts from his first room to here, he had yet to wear any of them.  Even knowing how hot it was out at the crash pad, he had worn pants.  He wasn’t sure what he had against shorts.  Maybe he thought he didn’t look serious enough in them.  Looking like a threat was a part of Bucky’s armour against the world, although he couldn’t rationally see how a pair of shorts would change that, not when his prosthetic arm was visible.  Perhaps wearing swim trunks would change his mind about shorts.

            Kit wore a one-piece bathing suit with a pair of men’s swim trunks.  Bucky didn’t think she had any reason to feel insecure about her body, but at the same time, he enjoyed that there were several parts of her that only he ever saw.  They wore shirts and shoes to the pool and then left them in a pile with their towels on a bench to one side.  The pool was huge, two thirds of it divided up into swimming lanes, while the rest was open for free swimming.  It was on a level part way up the cliff, the window commanding one wall even with the jungle’s treetops.  Several smaller pools were dotted around the sides.  Some were hot tubs, some were polar tubs, and some were for various tests and experiments.  The place was fairly crowded, it being the weekend.  The free swim area had shallow sections along two areas, one of which was currently being used to teach a tiny group how to SCUBA dive.  The other end had a group being led through an exercise routine, but they all had specialized electrodes attached to various parts of their bodies.  The space smelled strongly of chlorine and presented a weird mixture of science and leisure.  As Kit led him to the water’s edge, they passed one of the small pools that had a tiny group of men with clipboards standing around it.  Glancing into the pool, Bucky saw that it was way deeper than he had thought, deep enough that he couldn’t see the bottom at the angle he had, and a thick cable snaked it’s way through the depths.  He had no idea whether a machine or a living being was at the end of the cable.

            At the water’s edge, Kit hesitated.

            “I used to swim all the time, but I haven’t been since these.”  She fluttered her hands.  She wasn’t wearing her aviators, didn’t want to risk breaking or losing them in the water.  Her inability to see well in the brightly lit space probably added to her anxiety.

            “I’ve been a few times,” Bucky told her.  “Probably the most recent time being when I pulled Steve out of the water in D.C.  Well, the most recent time I was conscious anyway.”

            “I imagine it’s difficult to float.”

            “It’s impossible.  Do you want to try walking in through the shallow water as opposed to jumping in?”

            She nodded, and they moved away from the edge of the pool.  Kit kept one of her hands on Bucky’s shoulder as they walked around to where the SCUBA lessons were inching their way deeper.  While capable of navigating on her own, she was clearly being cautious.

            They walked into the water down a pebbled, concrete ramp that didn’t have much of a grade.  Bucky watched as Kit moved ahead of him, stopping once she reached the depth of her waist.  She then lowered herself into the chlorinated water and learned how to swim all over again.  Bucky swam beside her, offering suggestions, although it was different for him.  All the weight of the metal dragged on one side of his body, and he had serum strength to help compensate for it.  When Kit stopped waving her arms through the pool water, she sank, her legs not quite strong enough on their own to support her.

            “This sucks,” Kit groaned after several minutes of swimming, retreating back to where her feet could touch the bottom once more.

            “It’ll take practice,” Bucky encouraged her.

            “I never realized how much I rely on natural buoyancy before.  This is exhausting.”

            They sat in the shallows for awhile, Kit eventually crawling around like an alligator, her legs drifting behind her.  When the bottom was near enough for her hands to reach it, she didn’t have to worry about sinking too much.

            At one point, a group of people set up a floating net for a game of water volleyball.  They asked if Kit and Bucky wanted to play, provided Bucky only used one arm and half his strength, but they declined.  Kit wouldn’t be able to see the ball very well, and Bucky wasn’t interested in playing without her.  Instead, they sat nearby, splashing their feet, while Buck quietly narrated the details of the game for her.

            “I’m exhausted,” Kit finally decided.

            “Yeah? You done?”

            “I’m done.”

            “Do you mind if I stay down here a little longer to swim some laps?”

            “Not at all, just help me get to our stuff without tripping first.”

            After rinsing off the chlorinated water, putting on her shoes and shades, and wrapping herself up in a big, fluffy towel, Kit made her way back to their room on her own.  Bucky returned to the opposite end of the pool and found an empty swim lane.  The man who had recently entered the lane next to his groaned.

            “What?” Bucky wondered, sliding off the edge of the pool into the water.

            “You probably swim like a boat, don’t you?  Just try to keep your wake to a minimum.”

            “You’d be surprised how much this slows me down in the water,” Bucky informed the man with a wiggle of his cybernetic fingers.

            “Uh huh,” he said in a tone of disbelief and pushed off the wall to swim laps.

            Annoyed, Bucky began his own laps, overly conscious about his speed.  With his arm dragging him down on every other stroke, he went roughly the same speed as the other good swimmers doing laps.  He could out last them all, however, if he wanted to.  He wasn’t going to do that today though.  No, he was just going to out last the man next to him, the one who had decided that he needed to comment.  It was petty, but screw him.  Bucky could clearly see the man trying to compare himself to the super soldier, that he was pushing himself harder than normal.  Buck was going to make sure the guy’s body was sore in the morning, although he also kept an eye out in case the guy pushed himself too hard and started to drown or something.

            In the end, the man realized he stood no chance and was flagging badly.  After several laps back and forth across the expansive pool, he finally gave up.  Bucky kept an eye on the man without making it obvious that he was.  He continued to swim until the guy was out of the water and then out of the pool area all together.

            Having beaten the stranger in the most passive aggressive way Bucky knew of, he decided he was done.  He climbed out of the pool, rinsed quickly in the shower, and towelled off.  As he pulled on his sneakers and T-shirt he decided he was all right with wearing shorts.  He didn’t know why he had a problem with them before.  Maybe next time he found himself heading out into the searing heat he’d wear some.

            Making his way back up to his room, Bucky felt good about the day.  More importantly, he felt good about tomorrow.  He was ready to instruct soldiers on how to better keep themselves and others alive, even when that meant more effectively taking down the enemy.  He thought about Kit and how T’Challa’s soldiers were the ones protecting her.  If they had been better, they could have identified and neutralized the threat before Kit had ever found herself throwing away a grenade, or even dragging Yen to safety.  Yen could’ve kept his leg, and Kit never would have had to lose her eyes and hands.

            As he reached the room he shared with Kit, Bucky spotted her sitting on the couch with her tablet.  She appeared to be communicating with someone based on what he could see, although he had never seen her talk to anyone through her tablet before.  Buck entered the room quietly, not wanting to disturb her.  Kit glanced up, the smile on her face widening as she saw him.

            “Who’s that?” an unfamiliar female voice asked from the tablet.  “You just looked at someone, is it him?”

            “It’s no one, Mom.”

            Bucky raised his eyebrows and mouthed ‘mom?’ at Kit.  She responded by flicking her eyes toward the bathroom, telling him to move along.

            “You’re looking at someone,” Kit’s mom said with certainty.  “Based on that smile, it’s him.”

            “You haven’t seen me in how long?  How could you possibly know what my micro expressions mean?”

            “Because that wasn’t so micro, you’re my daughter, and it’s the same look I got whenever I saw your dad.  So, let me meet him.  Can he hear me?  Hello, over there!”

            “Mom, don’t shout.”

            Bucky stayed where he was, waiting for Kit to let him know what to do.

            Kit sighed.  “All right, yeah, it’s him.  Buck?  You wanna meet my mom?”

            “If you’re okay with it.”

            She gestured with her head for Bucky to come join her on the couch.  He made his way over and carefully slid in beside her.  Looking at the tablet he found an older, blonder version of Kit looking back at him with dark brown eyes.

            “Mom, this is Bucky.  Bucky, my mom,” Kit made introductions.

            “Hello, Mrs. Marcellus.”

            “You didn’t tell me he was so good looking,” she said to Kit.

            “You thought he wouldn’t be?”

            “Not _that_ handsome, I mean, good lord, just look at him.”

            “Oh I have.”

            “Are you treating my daughter well?” Mrs. Marcellus said to Bucky, her jocular tone becoming instantly more serious as her eyes flicked from looking at one part of her screen to another.

            “As well as I know how, ma’am.”

            “Ma’am?”

            “He doesn’t mean anything by that mom, only respect.  He sometimes talks like he grew up in the twenties.”

            So Kit hadn’t told her mom the truth about who Bucky was.

            “Kit tells me you’re one of her patients?  That that’s how you met?”

            “I don’t know if patient is the right word for it, but she built me this.”  Bucky held up his hand so that she could see.

            The resolution of Mrs. Marcellus’ camera was good enough for Bucky to see a tear appear in her eye.  One she quickly batted away in a very Kit like gesture, as though it had never been there.

            “It’s good to see she’s using her disability to help other people.  My kitten has always been a smart one.”

            “Mom,” Kit sighed, embarrassed about being called kitten but clearly also trying to bury her anger about being called disabled.

            “Believe me, I’m well aware of how smart she is,” Bucky said, looking at Kit when he said it.

            “Don’t let that intimidate you.  Other boys get intimidated.”

            “I like to think I’m a man, not a boy, ma’am.  I don’t mind that Kit knows more about certain things than I do.  In fact, it’s one of the things I like about her.”

            “Even so.  You better be taking care of my girl.”

            “We’re taking care of each other.”  Bucky could see that Kit wanted to get off the call.  She was clearly uncomfortable with Buck and her mom talking.  “I hate that our introduction has to be so short like this, Mrs. Marcellus, but Kit and I have a meeting today that we have to prepare for.”

            “A meeting?  Kit, you didn’t mention a meeting.”

            “Oh crap, I totally forgot about that.”  Kit put on serviceable acting job, latching on to Bucky’s escape plan.  “We don’t normally have meetings on Saturday, which is why it completely slipped my mind.”

            “Well then it’s a good thing Bucky’s around to keep you on top of this stuff.”

            “We gotta go now.  Bye, Mom.”

            “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Marcellus.”

            “Goodbye, Kitten.  Call me next time you’re free.  And Bucky?  You watch yourself.”

            Kit disconnected the call.

            “Oh god, that was so awkward!”  Kit flopped against Buck’s side.

            “I thought it went okay.  So how long have you been talking to her?”

            “Not long.”  She sat up straight again.  “We’ve been emailing.  She’s the one who suggested the forum group that’s been helping me.”

            This surprised Bucky, as he had guessed the forum people had been the ones to get her to contact her mom.

            “I eased her into knowing about my accident, sent her some pictures of what I look like now.  We Skyped once before, out on the testing grounds that time you stayed here for your shooting test.  I was going to tell you eventually, once it was easier, you know?  Once my mom and I had gotten all the stuff between us out of the way.  I didn’t want to have you thrown into the mix so soon, but then I couldn’t get her off the call, and you were back quicker than I thought you would be, and-”

            Bucky placed his hand over her mouth.  She was rambling at rapid fire.

            “It’s okay,” Bucky told her.  “I don’t mind.  I’m glad you managed to reconnect.”

            Kit flopped against him again, pressing her face into his neck.  “She’s gonna judge you so hard.”

            “Hey, I’m used to nineteen-twenties and thirties moms, I’m sure I can handle yours.”

            “Good, because I can’t.”

            Bucky laughed at that.

            “Did you enjoy your swim?”  She nuzzled his neck.

            “Sort of.”  Bucky told her about the guy in the next lane over.

            “He would probably get along with my mom just fine,” Kit said, surprisingly bitter.

            Bucky didn’t know what to say to that, he didn’t know either person well enough to comment.

            “Let’s do something fun,” Kit decided, sitting back upright.

            “Like what kind of fun?”

            “The kind that doesn’t involve pants,” she grinned.

            Bucky grinned right back.  “I’ll get the door.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I had a clever or interesting reason as to why this is being posted a day late, but I do not. I forgot that it was Friday yesterday.
> 
> [My Amazon page](https://www.amazon.com/Kristal-Stittle/e/B006NL1X4W)  
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> My ridiculous [Tumblr](http://wuzzler.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/kristalstittle) pages


	21. Chapter 21

            Finally getting back in touch with her mom had been both Kit’s best and worst idea.  While the woman had never been a very attentive mother during Kit’s childhood, it now seemed as through she had been saving it all up for the moment she learned her daughter had become a ‘wounded bird,’ to use her term.  She was all to eager to help with whatever, and while that had worked out well when it came to pointing Kit toward the forum for military spouses, everything else was just annoying.  Kit received emails from her mom at all hours, full of intrusive questions and questionable advice.  Unable to be rude, especially when she had been the one to first reach out, Kit replied to each message as well as she was able, using her nondisclosure agreement as a shield against answering certain things.  The difference in time zones helped with staving off Skype messaging, but it seemed to Kit like her mom never slept.  Luckily, work allowed her to put up walls against constant calling.  Sometimes was okay, but not every day.  Especially not now that her mom had met Bucky.  The questions concerning him were never ending.  When he had just been the military guy in Kit’s life who was going to be shipped off, it was one thing, but now she had seen and spoken to Bucky and wanted to know just as many details about him as she did about her own daughter.

            “Where did he grow up?” Kit’s mom asked during their latest call.

            Kit was half asleep in bed, the early hour weighing upon her, but she had agreed to the time.  She held her tablet in a way so that her mom couldn’t see Bucky lying beside her.  She hadn’t yet told her mom that they shared a room, although she suspected the woman may have guessed it by now.  Bucky was far more awake as he lay beside Kit, under strict orders to stay perfectly silent.  So far he was obeying.

            “Brooklyn,” Kit answered her mom’s question.

            “You never said he was American!”

            “Pretty sure I mentioned it at least once.”

            “Have you met his parents?”

            “No, not yet.”  It was an easier answer than to say her boyfriend’s parents had probably been dead longer than her mom had been alive.

            “Make sure you meet his parents.  They’ll tell you a lot about him, and I don’t just mean childhood stories.”

            “Yeah.”

            “You’re using protection when you’re with him, right?”

            “Mom!”

            “I just want my Kitten to be careful.”

            Kit squeezed her eyes shut and groaned with embarrassment.  She could feel Bucky shaking with silent laughter beside her.

            “But make sure you meet his parents as soon as you can.”

            “Yup.”  Kit’s jaw creaked as she yawned.

            “Are you sure you’re getting enough sleep?”

            “I’m certain of it, it’s just really early here.”  That was probably the third time she had mentioned that.

            “You never were an early riser.  Only Papa could get you out of bed before the sun without a fight, and that was by promising to take you to his garage before school.”

            “I liked the mornings when the new tire shipments came in.”  Kit smiled at the memory.

            “I once got a call from your teacher complaining that you had shown up for class all covered in grease, which you promptly got everywhere.”

            “I don’t remember that.”

            “You were in grade one at the time, if I remember.  Mrs. Jones?”

            “Yeah, that would have been grade one.”

            “Well, I better let you go now.  It sounds like Mr. Tash is at it again.  Goodbye, Kitten.”

            “Goodbye, Mom.”  Kit hung up and let the tablet drop onto her chest, silently thanking Mr. Tash.  Kit’s mom worked in a retirement home where not all the residents had their screws properly tightened.

            “She sounded upset that I’m American,” Bucky chuckled.  He had had a stupid grin on his face during most of the call.

            “She probably is.  I guarantee that she wants me to date a Canadian, and if not that, then at least a really exotic foreigner.”

            “New York isn’t exotic by your standards?”

            “Not even close.”

            “Have you ever been to New York?”

            “Once, for a conference.  Tony Stark was apparently there, but I never saw him.  He wasn’t slated for a presentation or anything.”

            “Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.  He’s pretty underwhelming.”

            Kit laughed.  “You should probably get up.  Don’t you have an early class today?”  It had been half a week since Bucky started teaching the elite squad what he knew.

            “Yeah, but I’m really comfortable right now.”

            “Are you getting along with those guys?”

            “Sure.  They gave me a nickname that they use when they think I can’t hear them.”

            “Yeah?  Is it bad?  Am I allowed to know it?”

            “It’s nothing bad.  They call me Bourne.”

            “As in Jason Bourne?”

            “Yeah.”

            “They could’ve done better.  I mean, Bourne lost memory after he stopped being an assassin, while you lost your memory when you were made into one.”

            “Well, there aren’t that many amnesiac assassins to reference.  Not that I know of anyway.  Are there?”

            “No, it’s a small pool.”

            “I don’t mind.  At least he kicks ass.”

            “There is that.”

            Bucky pressed his face into Kit’s hair.

            “How much time do you have?” Kit asked, running her fingers up along his left arm.

            “A little less than you do.  Which is enough time, I think, provided we share a shower.”  He rolled on top of her and Kit lifted her head in order to kiss him.

            They were quick that morning, fumbling around with their pyjama bottoms in place of proper foreplay.  Kit still climaxed, however.  No matter how rushed they were, Bucky made sure she felt the same amount of pleasure that he did.  He had amazing control that way.

            They showered together, got dressed together, and retrieved breakfast together.  They ate in the cafeteria that morning for it was closer to the elevators.  Once the meal was over, Bucky headed straight to wherever it was he was training T’Challa’s men that day.  Kit was never allowed to know the location until after the day was over.  Some sort of security thing.

            On her own, Kit returned to their room in order to pack her bag for the day.  Today was the last time they were heading out to the crash site.  She might not even be out there all day.  There was just one VTOL left, but after that there was some clean up that she and the other mechanics were expected to hang around and help out with, so she made sure to pack supplies for the whole day.

            The bus ride was always a lot quieter for Kit without Bucky.  She tried to talk to the others, but always found herself unable to stay a part of the conversation.  One on one, she could manage, but the group dynamic of the bus often eluded her.  She listened to the conversations around her, but found it hard to get a word in edge wise.  When she did, it was simply that sentence that got out.  A contribution that was noted and even remarked upon, but never really asked for follow up.

            Out at the airfield there was work to keep Kit busy.  She volunteered to check over the last VTOL before starting the crash tests, and monitored all the data as it came in.  Afterward, she helped pack up all the gear and then assisted the clean up crew as best she could.  The bus ended up heading back to the facility earlier than usual, but Kit had worked hard beneath the relentless sun, causing her to fall asleep on the way home.

            “Kit, wake up.”  Someone shook her shoulder once they reached their stop in the tunnel.  It was strange to hear a voice waking her up that was neither Bucky nor Yen.

Kit thanked the individual and pulled herself up off the seat, discovering she had developed a slight kink in her neck in the process.  While she made her way back to her room, she massaged it out.

            Bucky was still gone when Kit returned.  He must have been teaching a long lesson that day.  Kit took her time unpacking her gear and then rinsing off the day’s sweat in the shower.  All the crash data was being analyzed by the facility’s super computers at the moment, leaving Kit without anything to do.  She cleaned her room, actually going so far as to wash the floor and scrub down surfaces.  When that was done, she was starving.  Her usual dinner time had passed by over an hour ago.  Where was Bucky?  His lessons didn’t usually last this long.  Had he said something about today being different?  She thought back, but couldn’t recall any conversation where he might have mentioned today being a long day.  Even if he had, surely he would have reminded Kit about it this morning.  Should she be worried?  She had no idea.  It wasn’t like he was on some dangerous mission.  Had Steve finally shown up while she was gone?  No, Bucky definitely would have left some sort of message.

Not wanting to just sit around fretting, Kit went to get her dinner.  She picked up some for Bucky as well, assuming he’d have to be back soon.  Her hunger made her eat something, but the growing tension in her belly left a lot on the plate.  She pushed around vegetables and watched the steam from Bucky’s food completely dissipate.  It would be cold by the time he ate it.

            She couldn’t keep sitting in her room doing nothing, but she didn’t dare go far from her room in case he came back.  Kit wandered out into the communal area, walking along its length until reaching the windows.  By the time she reached them, the hall lights went dim.  The jungle outside was a black void, the cloudy night casting no light upon its mists.  Not even Kit could see much out there.

            When Bucky finally showed up, he found Kit with her forehead and hands pressed against the glass.

            “Kit!” he called to her as he quickly crossed the distance between them.

            Kit turned to him in an instant and ran over.  She barely had time to register the mud and sweat that stained most of his clothes before she ploughed into him, wrapping her arms tightly around his rib cage as he hugged her back.

            “I’m so sorry,” he told her, immediately understanding her concerns.  “I was teaching the guys some stuff out in the jungle.  Our pilot apparently had a heart attack between dropping us off and picking us up.  There were no other pilots available, so we had to walk back.”

            “I was so worried,” Kit spoke into his shoulder.

            “I know.  I would’ve sent word if I could have, but our radio was only for necessary communications.  Unfortunately, with military personnel, getting someone to tell you I’ll be late isn’t necessary.”

            “I understand.”  And she did, although that did nothing for how she felt just moments ago.

            “I’m starving and pretty disgusting, mind if we move out of the hallway?”

            Kit nodded and released him.  “I got you dinner, although it’s cold by now,” she told him as she swiped at her face.

            “Cold is fine, I just want to eat something I didn’t have to forage or hunt for.”

            They went into their room where Bucky collapsed into his chair.  He immediately started wolfing down the food.

            “So I guess the guys got more of a survival lesson than they bargained for, huh?” Kit said as she took the other seat.  By taking slow, deep breaths, she started to settle the emotional storm that had released inside her upon hearing Bucky’s voice.  She rolled her chair next to his and kept one hand resting on his leg while he ate, as if to confirm that he had indeed returned.

            Bucky nodded and spoke around a full mouth.  “I got quite a number of lessons too.  I don’t really have practical experience in jungles like that one.  The guys help me as much as I helped them.  Are you going to finish that?” he gestured to Kit’s plate.

            “You can have it, I’m not hungry.  You don’t… You don’t think T’Challa could have set that up do you?  That the story about the pilot is false, and he set you up to have you travel the jungle?”  It was one of several thoughts to flash through Kit’s mind.

            “No,” Bucky answered right away.  “I thought that too, but I stopped by the medical centre on the way up.  Jaka messed up her leg pretty bad and I needed to stay with her until the doctors took over.  I thought the same thing you did though, and checked on the pilot while I was there.  Unless T’Challa isn’t the man I think he is, and was willing to put a man’s life at risk by inducing a heart attack, he had nothing to do with this.”

            Kit knew T’Challa would never go that far, so it was a relief to hear.  It also threw her to hear Bucky use female pronouns.  Of course she knew several members of the elite squad were women, but Bucky called them the guys so often that it was easy to forget.  She knew she would never have a reason to be jealous, Bucky was not the kind of man to ever stray, but every now and then she felt a twinge.  Maybe Bucky knew that and that’s why he always called them the guys.

            “Will he be okay?” Kit asked about the pilot.

            “He’ll live, but he might not be allowed to fly again.  I don’t really know.”

            “Well, I’m glad that you’re okay.”  It felt like a lame thing to say.

            “I’m sorry that I worried you.”

            “You said that already.”

            Bucky polished off both plates of food.

            “Feel better?” Kit asked.

            “Much.  I think I need a shower next.”

            Kit joined him in that shower, not caring that this would technically be her third of the day.

            “Come on, let’s go to bed.”  Kit took Bucky’s hand afterward and led him across the room.  To Kit, he was obviously tired, but to anyone else, he probably hid it well.

            “How’d your day go?” Bucky asked as he flopped down.

            “Still thinking of me, huh?”  Kit curled up next to him.

            “Always.”  His eyes drifted closed.

            “Better than always?”  Kit ran her hand through his hair.

            “Hrmmm.”

            It didn’t take him long to fall asleep.  Kit stayed awake awhile longer, trailing her fingers along him, tracing his various curves.  She followed the lines of his body and wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t come back.  It was tempting to go on the forums, to talk to the friends she had made there, but Kit resisted.  If she reached up for her tablet, it might wake Bucky, and she didn’t want to do that.  Just lying here beside him would have to be enough to shake off the dark feelings.

            Kit pressed her face against Bucky so that he was all she could smell.  Taking slow, deep breaths of him, she was able to loosen the knot in her gut just enough to drift off.  It probably helped that the sun had sapped so much of her energy that morning.

***

            When the next morning drew Kit from her grey and murky dreams, she had a brief second where she thought she might have woken up before Bucky.  But then she paid attention to his breathing against her neck and his heart beat beneath her hand.  It was his awake rhythm.  He knew that she was awake, he always did, he was just choosing not to acknowledge it for the moment.  Kit decided to follow suit.

What was he thinking about as he lay there, not moving a muscle?  Were his thoughts of her?  Of his lessons that day?  Of Steve?  Kit liked to think they were of here—who wouldn’t?—but there was no way to really know.  She had never possessed the ability to read minds.  Was there anyone who could do that?

“Bucky?” she whispered as quietly as she could, just in case she was wrong about him being awake.  Her train of thought was causing her doubts.

            “Hmm?” he responded.

            “Do you know of anyone who can read minds?”

            “Can’t say I do.  Why do you ask?”

            “Just wondering.  I know a bunch of people have been popping up with special abilities lately.”

            “I’ve been asleep the past few years so I know less than you do.”

            “Yeah, but you’ve been privy to information that I’m not.”

            “I haven’t heard of any mind readers.”

            “It would be a weird power to have.  I mean, I suppose you’d get used to hearing people’s stray thoughts, the ones they’d never act upon, but it would still be weird to hear them.”

            “Well, thoughts are sounds, pictures and emotions, so I imagine a mind reader would be very understanding of people.”

            “That could be bad.  That also sounds like it would be very hard to keep hold of your own personality.”

            “Then it’s probably a good thing neither of us are mind readers.”

            They lapsed back into silence.  The downward spiral of Kit’s thoughts managed to be halted and she allowed herself to sink into Bucky’s warmth.  She wasn’t entirely sure if she fell asleep again or not as her mind wandered.  She didn’t pay attention to anything again until Bucky moved.

            “Time to get up?” she mumbled.

            “Unfortunately.”

            Kit moved her arms, making it easier for Bucky to slide out of bed.  He immediately went to the floor and started doing some push ups, which would be followed by sit-ups.

            “So what are your plans for today?” he asked while he warmed up his body.

            “I’m not sure.  It depends on what the crash data gives us.”

            “What might it give you?”

            “It’ll compare it to the data from our previous landing gear’s tests, as well as break down various cost assessments.  If it turns out as crap, we go back to the drawing board.  If it’s good, we move forward with installing it on the prototype.”

            “Well then, here’s to hoping the news is good.”

            Kit squiggled around on the bed so that she was lying sideways and looking down at Bucky.  “Don’t get lost today, okay?”

            “Will do,” he saluted mid sit-up.

            When finished on the floor, he got up to move through the rest of his morning routine, Kit following along behind him.  Repeating the morning before, they showered together, brushed their teeth together, dressed together, and went to get breakfast together.

            “I feel like you’re worried that I’m going to go missing the moment I’m out of your sight,” Bucky teased Kit while they ate.

            “I’m making up for the time I missed with you yesterday.”  But yes, she was worried about him disappearing again.

            When it was time for Bucky to head off, Kit held him extra close.  She drew him into a deep kiss as she pressed her hips against his, trying to tempt him to stay.  While certainly tempted, he was still a soldier and wasn’t about to brush off his duties.

            Kit made her wall totally transparent, even removing the tint, and decided to sit in the common area with her laptop while she waited for the results.  She wanted to be around people, and already the other labs were bustling with activity.  A few people she somewhat knew stopped to chat, and she did her damnedest to engage with them.

            When the results finally came in, they were in the form of an email sent by the head of the VTOL team.  The new landing gear was officially approved, and tomorrow Kit and some other mechanics would be building and installing it on the prototype.  Kit sighed with relief, grateful that it wasn’t back to the drawing board, but at the same time, she didn’t know what to do with the rest of her day.  Also, they only had to install the one set.  After how good they had gotten at finding ways to put the gear on old birds not meant to support it, installing it on the proper one would likely be a snap.  She was betting that they could do it in one day, and then she’d have to find a new project to attach herself to.  She hadn’t heard of any good prospects lately, and didn’t have and good ideas for a self-driven project.

            After sitting in the public space for several more minutes, Kit decided to go back into her room.  She didn’t have anything to work on, but thought there were some power tools that could stand to be dismantled and thoroughly cleaned, and certain blades that could be sharpened.  First, she laid out a plain, white cloth on her worktable and arranged her cleaning supplies around it.  She then selected her first tool, a power drill, and set to work.  She ended up cleaning and oiling the drill, a dremel, a skill saw, and was working her way through a grinder before someone showed up to interrupt her.

            “Sorry to interrupt, but you’re Kit Marcellus, correct?”

            Kit startled at the voice.  Not its sudden appearance but who she knew it belonged to.  She spun around in her chair and scrambled to her feet, the chair then kicking out from under her, nearly toppling over and trying to take her with it.

            “You Majesty,” she managed to get out as she stabilized her legs under her.

            “No need to be so formal.  Please, sit down.”  T’Challa gestured to her escaping chair.

            While Kit corralled it, the king shut her door behind him and crossed over to the chair Bucky usually sat in.

            “Is it all right if I sit?”

            “Please, go right ahead.”  Kit nearly missed her seat as she sat in it.  She hadn’t spoken to the king since he came to see her after her accident.  She couldn’t see him at that time, but she had learned his voice well in the few minutes they spoke.  His genuine concern and the guilt he portrayed over what had happened had really stuck with her.

            “So this is where you live with Sergeant Barnes?” he asked, glancing around the room.

            “Yes.”  Kit was so glad he had cleaned so recently.

            “I didn’t interrupt anything important, did I?” T’Challa asked with a gesture toward her worktable.

            “No, I’m just doing a little maintenance on my tools.  Is there something I can help you with, sir?”

            “There are two purposes to my visit.  First, I wanted to see how you’ve been doing.  I probably should have checked in much earlier than this.”

            “No, you’re a busy man, there’s no reason for you to have to check in on me.  And I’m doing well, thank you.”

            “I hear you and Barnes are getting along quite well.”

            “I would say so.  Can I ask who you heard that from?”

            “I’ve been keeping an eye on Barnes.  Khnel tells me what doctor patient confidentiality allows, and I’ve talked to the men and women that he’s been training.  You’ve come up.”

            “He talks to them about me?”  Kit had never really considered that for some reason.

            “Not a lot, but apparently when he does, the way he speaks left an impression.”

            Kit felt her face redden.  “What’s the second purpose to your visit?  Do you want to ask me about Bucky?”

            “If you feel there was something I needed to know then I would like to hear it, but don’t feel obligated to share you private moments.  No, I’m here to deliver some news.”

            “News?  Good news, or bad news?”  Kit’s heart kicked up a notch immediately fearing the bad news.

            “I don’t believe it’s either.  I’m going to start giving Sergeant Barnes missions.  I believe they’ll be good for him.”

            “I see.  How dangerous will these missions be?”

            “Nowhere near as dangerous as what he’s been through already.  They will predominantly be patrols outside this facility, escorting the occasional diplomat, and the rare surveillance job.”

            “Will you ever be that diplomat?”

            T’Challa smiled.  “No.  I have my own bodyguards.”

            Kit nodded.  That was good.  She didn’t want Bucky around the Black Panther.  The king was all right, but then T’Challa wasn’t just the king.  “Your Majesty, can I ask why you’re telling me this?”

            “I understand that Barnes is out training my soldiers right now.  I haven’t yet told him my plan.  It seemed impersonal to simply leave a note, but now is the only time I have for the moment.  I thought that since you two likely share everything anyway, it would be all right to ask you to tell him.”

            Kit found herself nodding, but something inside her was screaming.

            “One of my aides will be coming by at some point to fill him in, but I wanted him to be ready for it,” T’Challa continued.

            “I can tell him.”  Kit was surprised by her outward calm.

            “Thank you.  If there’s anything you need, new tools perhaps, please do not be afraid to let me know.”

            “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

            “Well, I should be letting you get back to your work as I should be getting back to mine.”  T’Challa stood, and Kit hastened to follow suit.

            After the king left, Kit continued to stand in the middle of her room.  It was as if everything had shut down.  There was no thought.  Time went by unobserved.  It wasn’t until someone outside her room stumbled and dropped a large book on the floor that Kit was able to snap out of it.

            When she moved, it wasn’t back to her worktable.  She left her room, closing and locking the door behind her.  She walked through the hallways to a stairwell and climbed the steps up one level.  Making her way toward the cryo lab, she stopped short at an office.  The door was open but Kit knocked as she entered, shutting the door behind her.

            Khnel turned away from some MRI scans she had clipped to a light table at the back of her office.  “Yes?  Ms. Marcellus, can I help you with anything?”

            “Are you busy?” Kit asked, her voice starting to break.

            Khnel snapped off the light table.  “No.  Please, take a seat.”  She didn’t gesture to her desk, but to an informal arrangement of couches she had set up around a small coffee table.

            Kit sat down on the clean, white fabric of one, and Khnel took a place on a different couch, set at a precise ninety-degree angle.

            “What can I help you with this afternoon?”

            “I want to talk.  I’m having trouble.”

            “I have no appointments scheduled for today.  Take as much time as you need.”

            Kit nodded as she tried to decide where to start.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this isn't as well edited as usual, that's because all my editing powers (and time) are being used on the rough draft of a novel I recently completed *she says like this hasn't become a novel as well*

            The blades of the VTOL hummed quieter than the heavy thump of a helicopter’s blades but they were far from silent.  Bucky sat with his legs hanging out the open side door, the stubby wings containing the rotors just ahead and above him.  He had learned that most VTOLs these days were powered by jet engines on gimbals, but this one was a bit more of a hybrid.  While there was a powerful jet engine beneath the tail for speed, it more often travelled at a slower pace, using its horizontal rotors more like a traditional helicopter, and tilting them for manoeuvrability.  It had been designed for city use.  Bucky wondered about the prototype that Kit had worked on, whether it was more jets or rotors.

            Air ripped through the cabin, roaring in either side as both doors hung wide.  Another man, another of T’Challa’s soldiers, stood in the opposite opening, holding tight to a safety rope over head.  Three men sat jammed together at the back of the cabin, where the air swirled and tore at anything loose it could find, while nearer the front sat this particular team’s only woman, facing the rear.  The empty seats on either side of her had recently been occupied by Bucky and the man at the other door.  Past her, the cabin dipped down into the cockpit, so that only the very tops of the pilots’ helmets could be seen over the back of the bench.

            Buck knew all this, but his eyes were currently focused outward.  Instead of a city, the VTOL currently flew over the jungle treetops, the rotor wash whipping the leaves into a frenzy and frightening the animals.  They were performing a slow circle around an ancient ruin below.  It used to be a village of stone, but now several of the structures had collapsed and nature had taken hold once more.  Trees had pushed their way up through the cracks, while vines crept across anything that they could hold onto.  Where the stone remained exposed, it flashed white, like bones that had been picked clean.

            After circling the site and locating a suitable place to land, the VTOL banked sharply toward it and then hovered in place.  They lowered toward the thick stone tiles of a large courtyard, dust and dead leaves scattering in all directions.  Bucky got to his feet before they touched down, slinging his rifle over one shoulder.  The man in the other door leapt out, hurriedly making sure that the area was as secure as it had appeared from the air.  There was no reason it wouldn’t be, his perimeter run was just protocol, so those still in the VTOL got to work unloading before he had finished.

            Four long crates of equipment rested in the middle of the hold.  While the others carried one between a pair of them, Bucky lifted the remaining two on his own, one tucked under each arm.  All the crates were laid side by side and Bucky ran back to the VTOL to slam its rear doors shut.  He then moved into sight of the pilots and gave them the all clear.  The VTOL rose back into the air and booted up its jet engine to speed away back to the facility.  Within seconds, the silence it left behind was filled with the whine of jungle insects and leaves brushing against each other in the breeze.  A bird cried somewhere, prompting others to do the same.  The jungle returned to its normal state, ignoring its six new visitors.

            “All right, let’s stow the equipment over there for now and check out this place on foot,” ordered Char’ra, the squad leader.  While Bucky still fumbled when trying to speak Wakandan, he had no difficulty with understanding the dialect when Char’ra used it.

            She grabbed one end of a crate while Alex grabbed the other.  Keller and Pollock picked up the second, leaving Bucky to carry the two he had before and Lo’m with nothing to do besides get to the location first.  They placed the black crates inside the opening of what used to be a building, but one that no longer had a roof.  They tucked them against the stone, hiding them beneath a bit of foliage that clung there.  It was unlikely anyone would come through here, but just in case, they didn’t want to leave them out in the open.

            Char’ra led the search around the ruins.  Bucky and the other four men fanned out behind her, poking into every nook and cranny.  They searched the whole place, every building, while taking care not to damage anything.  Although it wasn’t currently an archaeology site, it might be one day.  There were several places like this dotted around Wakanda.  A bunch of ancient ruins, mostly just the outlines of old wooden buildings out on the planes, peppered the country.  Why so many had been abandoned and left to rot, no one seemed to know, or at least they weren’t telling Bucky.  But history wasn’t why they were here today; a more modern problem had to be dealt with.

            This place, as well as several others, was a suspected stop over for thieves, poachers, and smugglers.  The jungle was the hardest part of the boarder to protect for the same reason it was the place that needed the least amount of protecting.  Lately, however, there had been a rise of drugs coming in and weapons, rare metals, and animals going out.  Intel suggested that these criminals had found a safe enough path through the jungle for them to risk using it.  Old sites like these made natural places for men moving anything to camp at.  Four potential ruins had teams like Bucky’s deployed to them for observations and surveillance, and perhaps, confrontation if it came down to that.  If someone was going to come through here or one of the other locations as reports suggested, they were going to know about it.

            After exploring the entirety of the ruins, they returned to the gear crates.  Char’ra had labelled and marked all the best locations on a satellite map of the area.  She decided where they were going to set up their surveillance hub, the best places to put the cameras, and where the men would be stationed throughout the night.

            “Winter, I thought I’d set you up here, but if you’ve got a better idea, feel free.”

            Bucky understood why she put him where she had, but she had picked it based on the skills of the regular soldiers that she was used to commanding.

            “It’s a good spot, but I would have a greater field of view up there.”  He pointed to the vantage point he had spotted earlier.

            “Can you get up there without damaging anything?  You won’t be able to use anchors or even ropes.  And no cracking those metal fingers of yours into the stone.”

            “I can get up there without harming anything, don’t worry about it.”

            “Then I guess up you go.”

            Bucky assembled his kit from the gear crates.  From one, he grabbed a small pack of water and food, as well as a latrine bucket; there was no space for human waste where he was headed.  From the second crate, he withdrew the smaller case that held his sniper rifle with its ammunition.

            “Take a blanket.  It may not get cold, but it might help keep the damp off,” Alex advised.

            Buck thought it sounded like good advice, and it wasn’t like it added much to what he carried.  Unlike the itchy, moth eaten blankets he remembered from the war, these soldiers carried tightly packed silver foil that they referred to as space blankets.  It was unfortunate that the material was so visible, but Bucky might not have to worry about that.  Grabbing a few of the packing straps that had kept the crate’s contents from shifting in the VTOL, Bucky was able to carry all his gear on his back.  After exchanging a few well wishes with the others, he headed off on his own.

            The location he had chosen was the highest spot in the whole village.  A great spire of stone once stood in the middle, a pale rib thrust up out of the earth.  Weather had caused a chunk of the top to fall off, creating a flat spot large enough for Bucky to lie on top of.  The spire of blocks weren’t a building however.  There was no interior, and no stairs.  The builders had probably used wooden ladders and pulleys in its creation, but they were long gone.  Now there was only gaps in the mortar and vines curling around the base.

            Bucky stood at the bottom and stared up.  He walked a slow circle around the great pillar, studying the wall for the best route to ascend.

            “Aren’t you afraid of falling?” Keller asked, walking past on the way to his own post.

            “I’ve fallen from much higher and survived.”

            “Not all of you.”  Keller kept walking, disappearing beyond a block of stone.

            He was right of course.  They knew that he had lost his arm falling from a train above a half-frozen river.  Bucky had told them about it when they had asked, although his memories of the incident were hazy.  All he recalled of the fall was feeling a strange peace come over him.  He assumed there was terror before that and pain afterward, but those exact memories were gone and they weren’t coming back.  At least, not outside of the occasional nightmare.

            Having decided his route up, Bucky sat down and took off his boots.  He was going to need to use his toes for this climb.  He stuffed his socks in a pocket and tied his laces around his pack.  There was no hesitation as he took to the ascent.  Every placement of each hand and each foot was done carefully.  He was more concerned about damaging the ruin than he was about falling.  With as strong as his fingers and toes were, all he needed was the barest of gaps between the stone blocks to grip.  He didn’t bother to pause once on his way up.  He followed the path had had laid out from the ground, and it took him only a couple of minutes to reach the top.

            The spire turned out not to be just a decorative statement.  While Bucky had assumed the top had calved off, there was a depression up there that suggested otherwise.  A bowl had been carved out of the top, although the east side had worn away.  The old burn scars that the stone bore made Bucky think that this was once a signal fire.  A great torch to warn the villagers of danger, or maybe to help hunters find their way home.  Some historian would probably decide one way or the other at a future date.

            He glanced down from his perch and spotted Char’ra looking back up at him.

            Bucky turned on the coms device strapped around his throat.  “I didn’t hurt it, did I?”

            “No damage that I can see,” Char’ra responded.  “Everything all right up there?”

            “Good sight lines.  I don’t see anything worth reporting.”

            “Take some pictures and send them to me.”

            “Will do.”  Bucky pulled the camera out of its holster on the back of his belt and did as she asked, the photos automatically being sent to her computers.  He wished that he could also send the photos to Kit, but there were security protocols for this mission that prevented him from doing so.  She was probably busy anyway.  An elephant had recently been brought into the facility, one whose back legs were badly infected due to the horrible conditions in which it had been confined.  The majestic beast had to lose both legs in order for its life to be saved.  Luckily for the elephant, a very skilled prosthetist was on hand to build him some new legs.  While they wouldn’t be made as complex or out of as expensive materials as Bucky’s and Kit’s prosthetics, the elephant would get to live a relatively normal life, and their construction would keep Kit occupied while Bucky was away on this mission.

            Placing his gear securely in the bowl, Bucky carefully moved about the top of the pillar, finding the best positions to lie down for various sight lines.  He kept his boots off for it wasn’t cold and there were blessedly no bugs up there, at least for the time being.  He enjoyed the feel of the stone, worn smooth from countless storms.

            Taking his sniper rifle out of its crate, Bucky assembled it while sitting in the bowl, his feet hanging out over the worn down side.  He loaded each bullet into a magazine from a small box in the crate, and the loaded a secondary mag.  He doubted that two would be needed, nine shots seemed plenty to him, but it was better to be prudent.  Once the rifle was ready to go, Bucky laid it in the bowl beside him, where he’d be able to grab it with ease.  With that all done, he settled in for a long wait.

            Kit had given him a small, electronic music player that she had put a variety of stuff on for him. Bucky placed one of the tiny headphone ends in the ear that wasn’t currently occupied by his coms piece.  He kept his coms turned up and the music turned low so that he wouldn’t miss anything, but otherwise slipped into a relaxed state.  He didn’t know what music was loaded onto the device, but he was going to listen to whatever played.

            Hours slipped past as the sun headed for the horizon.  Bucky didn’t sleep, but he was as close as he would allow himself to be in this place.  If the smugglers were coming, it would be at night and he needed to be awake for then.  A few times he returned to proper consciousness to learn the name of a song he particularly liked, but most of his afternoon was lost to the music.

            The sunset brought with it an extra cacophony of noise from the jungle, as the animals all prepared for the coming darkness.

            “Goddamn insects,” Pollock muttered over the open radio channel.  The rest of the team had also bedded down, either sleeping or in a state of deep relaxation like Bucky had been.  They had gotten out there far earlier than they had needed to be for they didn’t want the sound of the VTOL to scare anyone off.  Now that night was falling, they were all coming back to life again.

            “Must be nice hiding out in that netting of yours, Char’ra,” Alex commented.

            “I’ll trade you the biting bugs for the heat, stale air, and centipedes that keep crawling out of the damn ground,” Char’ra responded.  She was set up with the surveillance computer equipment in a tiny room in one of the buildings, with light blocking tarps, camouflaging fabric, and bug netting all around.

            “I’ll take that trade,” Lo’m offered.

            “You’ll stay put,” Char’ra rescinded.

            “I’m quite comfortable,” Bucky added to the chatter.

            “I hope you’re sunburnt,” Alex muttered.

            “I may have been, although I can’t really tell at the moment.”  Bucky had put on sunscreen earlier, but with no hat, no fingers on the ends of his gloves, and no socks or shoes, there was a chance he’d find very specific parts of him feeling crispy later.  He probably should have worn a hat, but the only one offered with his gear was more of a helmet and that seemed like it would have gotten too hot.  Well, he had been curious if he could even get sunburned since being remade, so no time like the present to find out.  If Kit were there, she would have scolded him and insisted that he cover up.  She was very worried about skin cancer.  Apparently a lot of guys from the war had ended up with skin cancer because of all the time spent out in the sun, including one of her Granddads.  Kit didn’t want him adding to those numbers.

            The chatter over the coms continued for awhile while everyone ate their dinner.  Bucky had a bottle of water and some sort of nutrient bar.  When compared to the food made at the facility, it was like eating sawdust held together by rubber glue, but at least it was filling.  The chatter died off again when darkness fell.  Bucky watched the moon rise, casting silver light and making the ruins look ever more like bones than ever.  The jungle was darker here, the mists that surrounded the facility not reaching this far.  A scattering shimmer of light reflected off of leaves in the wind, more of a chaotic ocean than land.

            Every half-hour, Bucky scanned the area with his rifle’s night scope and radioed in his lack of findings.  Elsewhere, the others were walking patrol routes, alternating between night vision and thermal scopes.  At midnight, he made his report and called in the request he promised Kit he’d make.

            “Hey, Char’ra?”

            “Yeah, Winter?”

            “Mind if I make a phone call?  It’s an encrypted satellite phone.”

            “Callin’ your girl?” she teased.

            “That’s right.”

            “Okay, but don’t stay on too long, and keep your ear piece in.  Turn off your throat mic though, I don’t want to have to hear your sappy drippings.”

            “Copy that.”  Bucky wasn’t entirely sure he had translated ‘sappy drippings’ correctly, but he hoped that he and Kit never said anything that fell into that category.  It actually sounded mildly repulsive.

            Bucky had carried the phone with him in a special holster on his belt.  Khnel had given it to him before his first overnight mission, which had been awhile back now.  Since Kit had started seeing the doc, her emotions had smoothed out.  She still got really upset at times, like during that first overnighter, but she had a wide support system to turn to.  Khnel had never asked for the phone back, so Bucky had kept it.  It was handy to have, especially when a mission parameter changed and he had time to tell Kit.  The downside was that sometimes T’Challa used it to call in and cause said changes to the mission parameters.

            While dialling the number he had memorized, Bucky switched off this throat mic.  While the phone connected to a satellite and made the carious security checks and hops, he made a bet with himself that Kit was working late as opposed to getting ready for bed like she should be at this time.  There was a lot of clicking before it actually started to ring.

After the second chime, Kit’s voice came over the line.  “Bucky?”

“Hey, Kit.  I didn’t wake you, did I?”

            “No, I was working.”

            He won his own bet.  “Elephant legs?”         

            “You got it.  What are you up to?”

            “I’m sitting on a perch that you would probably disapprove of.”

            “What are you hunting?”

            “The usual.”  Even though the line was encrypted, they were both careful not to get too specific.  “What was for dinner tonight?”

            “Some sort of roast bird that almost tasted like chicken, and a mushroom soup.  Oh, and they made those chocolate globs again, the ones you really like.”

            “I am so sad.  I had a nutrient bar.”

            “I saved you some globs.  They’re in the fridge for when you get back.”

            “Ahhhh, you’re the best.”

            “That’s provided I don’t eat them in the mean time.”

            “That would make you the worst.”

            “I’d be the worst, but I would also be filled with chocolate globby goodness, so it would balance out.”

            “What did you do all day?  Just work?”  Bucky picked up his socks and boots and started to put them back on.  The temperature had dropped a bit with the disappearing sun, and while not exactly cold, it seemed prudent, especially if something were to happen.

            “Pretty much.  Yen was originally going to come hang out for a bit, but he got called away somewhere.  Anything interesting happen with you?”

            “Always.  I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

            “That’s still tomorrow, right?”

            “Should be.  No one’s heard anything different.”

            “All right.”

            They fell into a natural silence, Bucky pressing his ear to the phone in order to hear her breathing.

            “Well, I should let you get back to whatever you’re doing,” Kit said after about half a minute.

            “I’m not busy.”

            “And yet…”

            “Yes, and yet…”  These kinds of call always had to remain short.

            “Goodnight, Buck.”

            “Goodnight, Kit.”  Bucky always made sure to hang up once they reached an apparent end to their conversation.  If he lingered only to discover that she didn’t hang up right away, he might struggle to actually do it.

            Once the phone was returned to its holster, Bucky turned his throat mic back on.

            “Call’s complete,” he radioed in.

            “Everything fine at home?”

            “Apparently they had some sort of roasted bird for dinner,” Bucky informed them.  While they had a different cafeteria, the military personnel at the facility were fed just as well as the scientists.

            “Don’t tell me things like that,” Pollock complained.

            “All right, then I won’t bring up the mushroom soup or chocolate globs.”

            “You are a cruel, cruel man,” Lo’m sighed.

            “I needed someone to share in my misery.”  
            “Thank you for sharing, now shut up,” Char’ra said in such a sickly sweet voice that it was hard not to laugh.

            It was while doing his sweep of the area at 1:30 in the morning when Bucky spotted a flicker of light in the jungle.

            “We’ve got company headed our way,” he reported in the quietest voice possible and still have the mic pick it up.  “Any of our guys changing positions?”  He relayed the co-ordinates of the light.

            “If it’s someone from another of our camps, they failed to call it in.  Everyone check in.”

            Bucky, Lo’m, Alex, Pollock, and Keller all radioed in that they were still in their positions.  So far, only Bucky could see anything due to his elevated position.

            “Get your camera on it,” Char’ra ordered.

            Bucky did as commanded, setting the device to video mode, which would send Char’ra a live feed.  The camera’s battery could only record like this for about two hours, but that should be long enough.  If Bucky was right, the intermittent light he saw blinking among the trees should reach them in approximately twenty minutes.

            It turned out to be twenty-three minutes before the approaching party broke free of the jungle cover so that Bucky could see them clearly.

            “They’re trafficking people,” he reported.

            His scope revealed to him five men with rifles and shoulder mounted flashlights guarding a train of nineteen exhausted looking men and women who were bound together by a rope connecting their handcuffs.  Bucky relayed everything he could see over the open mic so that the whole team was well aware of what was going on.

            Then a woman near the end of the line tripped and fell.  One of the guards barked at her, doing nothing to assist her in getting back up on her feet.  Her legs were weak and shaking, and the kick delivered to her upper arm didn’t help.  At that distance, Bucky could just hear her cry out.  The next man in line helped her back upright.

            They didn’t walk much farther before deciding to stop.  The bound people were guided to sit in a circle, their backs outward.  Bucky could spy a few bruises on them whenever the lights of one of the guards swept over them.

            “What’s the plan?”  If Bucky had been alone, he’d already be lining up his shots.  The most alert first, the least competent looking last.

            “Rescue those people.  Take one of the guards alive if possible.  The leader would be best.”

            “I’m guessing the guy in the Stetson.  He seems to be giving orders.  He’s cautious though, stays near the hostages.  If they decide to start firing, someone could get killed.”

            “I’m aware, Winter.  Give me a minute.”

            Bucky gave her exactly that before again asking for orders.

            “Lo’m, Keller, Pollock, Alex, how close can you get?”

            Their replies were barely picked up by their mics.  Lo’m was in the best position, able to creep inside a building that opened up next to where the men were stationed.  Alex couldn’t get close, having to circle around to come at them from the jungle side, while Keller and Pollock ended up at the same building corner about a block away from the hostiles.

            “Five of them, six of us,” Char’ra commented.  “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

            Bucky listened closely to the orders given.  He saw no problem with the plan.

            “Am I maiming or killing?” Bucky asked for clarification.

            “Killing.  Take the bitch down.”

            Bucky slid his finger inside the trigger guard.  He kept his sights on the man who had kicked the woman, but also watched Stetson outside the scope.  The hat made him easy to identify, even at a distance.  The electric lanterns the man had turned on and placed around the ground also helped.

            It was a tense two minutes, as the five hostiles took out food and water for themselves, offering none to their captives.  Three of the men sat down to rest their feet, while one started to piss against an ancient stone wall.  Stetson kept moving, taking a slow walk around the ring of prisoners.  His eyes were directed mostly outward, unlike the others.

            “Get ready, Lo’m,” Keller whispered.  “Three, two, one, execute.”

            Lo’m slid gracefully out of the darkness of the building’s opening just as Stetson was passing it.  One hand went to the man’s rifle to keep it from rising, while the other hooked around his face from behind, clamping hard over his mouth.  Lo’m hauled the man backward through the opening with him, the shoulder lights disappearing disturbingly quick.

            Bucky didn’t see much of this.  His focus zeroed in on his target.  The man had seen what was happening, but before he was able to cry out or get back on his feet, Bucky placed a bullet cleanly through his skull.  The sound of his rifle reached the group well after the asshole was already dead and slumping toward the ground.

            The two remaining seated guards shot to their feet, turning toward Bucky’s position.  The pisser fought to zip up his fly and get his rifle back in his hands.

            From beside the jungle, Alex started to fire, directing his shots into the air so as not to hurt anyone.  He was just a distraction.

            The remaining hostiles all turned toward him, possible not even yet realizing that one of their own was already dead and another missing.  Keller and Pollock rushed around the corner, rapidly closing in on the group who were now turned away.  As soon as the range was impossible to miss, the two guys that had been sitting were shot in the back.  Their bodies jerked before falling to the ground.  The pisser was surprisingly smarter.  He threw himself into the ring of terrified prisoners so as to have hostages on all sides.  Even from his vantage point, Bucky could hear their frightened screams.  Several tried to escape, but the ring was pulling against itself, while others were just trying to lie flat.  Keller and Pollock didn’t dare shoot, for though they could hit their target, the bullet might pass through the man and hit one of the now-standing innocents behind him.

            Bucky took care of the man.  In fractions of a second, he lined up a shot that would take his bullet through the hostile and plant it safely in the stone less than a foot from one of the prisoners.  His high angle was to his advantage, but if one of the hostages suddenly moved the wrong way, he could kill them.  Bucky didn’t hesitate or second-guess himself.  He squeezed the trigger, the recoil smacking the rifle into his immobile shoulder.  The last man dropped.

            “Checking hostiles,” Keller barked into his mic.  He ran up to each dead man to check for a pulse and verify that he was indeed dead.

            Pollock rushed to the opening where Lo’m had snatched the leader to make sure everything had gone as planned over there.  Alex was running from the jungle to join his allies.

            “It’s all right.  You’ll be okay.  It’s over now.  We’re here to help.  Is anyone hurt?”  As soon as Keller had dealt with the dead, he turned his attention to the living, switching his words between Wakandan, English, and a third dialect that Bucky didn’t know but figured was a frequent enough dialect in these parts.  Alex was quick to join him, and Pollock as well, since Lo’m had the Stetson wearer on lockdown.

            “All right, Winter, clear out your nest and get down here.”

            “Copy that.”  Bucky broke down his rifle and packed up his kit.  He studied the drop, wondering if he should just jump.  In the end, he decided to climb down.  There was no rush and therefore no reason to risk injury.  Taking his boots back off, Bucky prepared to descend.

            “Do you want me to help with the hostages, or help you pack up the gear?” he asked once he was back on solid ground.

            “The guys got things covered.  Help me with the equipment,” Char’ra responded.  “We want to be ready when out rides get here.”

            The night had wrapped up a lot quicker than they had thought it would, and yet Bucky was glad to be heading home.  Even if he knew Khnel was going to have a very long talk with him once he got back about what it had felt like to kill someone again.  Bucky couldn’t tell if she was going to be happy or disappointed by his response.  He hadn’t felt anything.


	23. Chapter 23

            Kit found she had a stability in her life she hadn’t known since before the loss of her arms and eyes.  She hadn’t realized just how fragile her world had been until Bucky had cracked it open.  Thankfully he didn’t leave it that way, and now he was helping her put her pieces back together.  She also had the help of Yen, Khnel, her mom, and the friends she had made once she finally started posting on the forums.  It was hard, even painful during some of her sessions with Khnel, but she was finally healing wounds that had been left festering in her mind for too long.

            Part of the process involved a routine.  Bucky helped her build structure, making sure she got up in the morning, that she went to bed at a reasonable hour at night, and that she ate regularly throughout the day.  Recently, he had started her on an exercise routine.  She followed him to the track in the morning and jogged far fewer and far slower laps than he did.

            “How you doing?” he asked as he came around, trotting backward at her pace.

            Kit merely looked at him, too out of breath to properly answer.

            “You’re doing better than when you first started,” he encouraged.  “I’ll have you running marathons one day.”

            Were she willing to break rhythm, she would have given him the finger.

            Bucky grinned as if she had before turning around and running off at a ridiculous pace.  Kit focused on just keeping her legs moving, ignoring the watch she had strapped to her wrist.  It was tempting to look, to see just how much time had elapsed, but she wouldn’t let herself.  On too many days previous, she had been disappointed to see how few minutes had ticked away.  Kit did her best to convince herself that continuing to move forward was all that mattered for the moment.  Master her body and mind with one gruelling exercise.

            “I give,” she finally gasped, staggering off the track toward the benches at the side of the room.  She checked her watch and saw that she had been running for fifteen minutes and forty-two seconds.  Slightly less than yesterday, but not by much.

            “Don’t sit down,” Bucky told her as he went by.  “Try to keep walking for a bit.”

            Kit had been just about to sit down but instead groaned.  She picked up a water bottle and paced very slowly back and forth in front of some of the benches.  At least she didn’t think she was going to puke, which had happened when she pushed herself extra hard a couple of days back.

            Having decided that she had walked enough, Kit finally flopped down onto the hard bench with a sigh of relief.  She could feel her blood rushing through the quivering muscles of her legs.  She sat, she gulped down water, and she watched Bucky jog absurdly fast laps.

            “Let’s see how fast you can really go,” she called out as he went by yet again.

            “Yes, ma’am!” he called back.

            The speed in which Bucky sprinted around the track was astounding.  Everyone else who had been jogging laps came to a stand still as they watched.  It just didn’t look right, a human running that fast.  Bucky could barely manage the gentle curve at each end of the loop, his momentum threatening to topple him over.  After three laps, full pelt, he came to a stumbling stop by Kit.

            She laughed and shook her head, unable to think of any other way to react.

            Bucky was actually sweating and tired after that.

            “I finally found a way to wear you out,” Kit commented, tossing him a water bottle.

            “I don’t often sprint,” he replied.  He cracked the top off the bottle and swallowed half its contents in one go.  “Turns are deadly, I had to slow down for them or my legs were going to kick out from under me.”

            “I wonder what speeds you could get up to on open terrain.”

            Bucky sat down on the bench beside her, steadying his breathing a lot faster than Kit had been able to.  “I out ran some cars once, when Steve and T’Challa were trying to bring me in.  I don’t know how fast they were going at the time, though, as I had other things on my mind.”

            “We should’ve found out when we out at the airfield.”

            “Shoulda, woulda, coulda.  Come on, time to shower.  You have work to do.”  Bucky sprung back up, looking no worse for wear.

            “Unnnnnnhhhhh,” Kit just groaned, hating the idea of using her legs.

            “Come on.”  Bucky scooped her up, causing Kit to turn a bright shade of embarrassment.

            “Put me down!” she squealed and they headed for the exit.

            “What?  You’ve never had a problem with me carrying you before,” Bucky teased.

            “There’s a big different between a piggyback ride and being carried bridal style.”

            “Want me to switch to a fireman’s carry?”

            “Definitely not!  Put me down, I’ll walk.”

            Bucky set Kit down on her feet, chuckling the whole time.  While Kit’s legs complained, she managed to make them walk the rest of the way to the door, while momentum managed to carry her all the way to the elevator.  Once in it, she leaned against Bucky’s side.

            “Breakfast?” he asked.

            “Definitely.”  On some days she felt too sick to eat after running, but today was not one of those days.  The power bar she had wolfed down upon getting up was only enough to get her through the run.

            The cafeteria was busy that morning.  Kit and Bucky joined the line, waiting for their share of eggs, sausages, bacon, fruit, and waffles.  They found a place to sit in the cafeteria so that they could be across from one another and share all their food on a single plate between them.  Half way through the meal, Yen sat down beside Kit.

            “Hey, how’s it going?” Kit greeted him.

            Yen responded with an exhausted sigh and an exaggerated slumping of his shoulders.

            “That great, huh?” Bucky responded.

            “Do you know anything about stomachs?” Yen asked them both.

            “Only that I like putting food into mine,” Buck answered, taking a bite.

            “They’re very complicated,” Kit said.

            “Exactly,” Yen nodded.

            Kit was a bit interested in asking more about what he was up to, but she wouldn’t understand the details very well, and having to explain while already frustrated would only exacerbate Yen’s problems.  Instead, she decided to change topics.

            “Has your floor hockey team played their first tournament game yet?”  Once a year, the teams organized a formal tournament.  There were medals awarded and everything at the end, although they often used it to evaluate each team’s skill level and whether they needed to shuffle some people around to balance out the teams for next year.

            “Not yet, although it’s not looking good.  Maz, our best defence man, tore his ACL.  He won’t be playing for awhile.”

            “Ouch,” Bucky commented.  “How’d he do it?”

            “He decided to change a light bulb in his lab and took a bad fall off his table.”

            Kit did her very best not to snicker.  “Did he at least get the bulb changed?”

            “He did.”

            “I don’t suppose either of us could sub in?” Bucky offered, knowing the answer.

            “Super soldiers and mechanical wrists are banned.”

            “Is that anyone here outside of us?” Bucky wondered.

            “Nope.”

            “Kit, we need to invent a sport that only the two of us are allowed to play.”

            Kit refrained from saying her first response, that they kind of already had.  “But then I’d always have to play against you, and that sounds like a constant losing streak.”

            “I’ll handicap myself.”

            “Who said the losing streak would be mine?” Kit teased.

            Either the joke of the mock expression Bucky put on in reaction to it managed to make Yen laugh.

            When breakfast was done, Kit and Bucky went back to their room and shared a shower.  Afterward, Kit settled in for a day of work, as Bucky lounged on the couch with the tablet.  He was only there for a little over an hour before he had to go out for some patrol assignment.

            “When can I expect you back?” Kit asked when he kissed the top of her head just before leaving.

            “I shouldn’t be out too long today.  I expect to be back before dinner.”

            “Okay, see you then.  Love you.”

            “Always.”

            “Better than always.”

            And with that, Bucky headed out.

            Kit liked working with the zoo, building prosthetics for the injured animals.  Soon, the first animal she had built legs for, the elephant, would be fully recovered from its surgeries, and Kit was going to be invited down to meet it.  While the limbs she built for those few animals who needed them weren’t nearly as complicated or detailed as hers and Bucky’s arms were, they still required a fair amount of work.  Also, while not armoured like hers and Buck’s, she had to build them to withstand whatever forces the animal might hit them with.  Currently, she was designing most of a foot for a lion that had somehow gotten its front paw mangled—Kit didn’t like to ask how the animals had been injured. A lot of the design process involved learning about what a lion does with its paws on a regular basis, including the way it cleaned them with its tongue.  Certain habits presented interesting challenges.

            At lunch time, a small alert went off on her computer to remind her to eat.  Now that she was exercising, eating regularly had become even more important.  She took a short break, eating the meal alone in a common area near a window, and then returned to work.  It was the middle of the afternoon when she was interrupted again, although this time it wasn’t scheduled.

            “Kit?  Are you in the middle of something?”

            Kit was mildly shocked to find that Khnel had entered her room.  Part of the deal that Kit had made with the doctor was that she was always to go to her.  Khnel would only come here if…

Kit felt all the blood drain from her face, and it no longer mattered if she had been busy or not.  Only two things would bring Khnel here.  The first, would be if Bucky had somehow been terribly injured, but given that he was just out on a simply patrol today, that seemed unlikely.  The second reason…

            “We’ve received a message from Captain Rogers,” Khnel confirmed Kit’s fears.  “He’ll be here tomorrow.”


	24. Chapter 24

            Bucky followed his designated route.  He naturally searched the area for threats, for anything odd or out of place, but that came as naturally to him as breathing, which allowed his mind to dwell on other matters.  He knew that Steve was coming, but had no idea that Khnel was currently relaying that information to Kit.  What Bucky was thinking about was whether he should call in a replacement to finish his shift in order to go talk to her, or if he should just wait until afterward to let her know.  Where as more time with Kit was always great, keeping her from worrying as long as possible also seemed like a reasonable plan.  Kit didn’t need to tell him for Bucky could see that she was honestly better than she had been when they first met.  More comfortable with herself and the world.  While being with her had helped Bucky accept and deal with his various problems, the same could also be said for her with him.  Still, while she had built herself a stable structure, Bucky knew that he was the main support beam for that, and this was going to blow a hole in her life.

            It was certainly blowing a hole through his.  But then, he had a lot of experience with such things.  He had come to expect them.  It was the collateral, the other people in his life, that he wasn’t sure how to deal with.

            He knew Steve had a mission.  He knew it was of vital importance, he wouldn’t be coming for Bucky if it weren’t.  He knew he was going to go, and there was no guarantee about when, or, honestly, even if he would be able to come back.  It wasn’t just Kit he’d be leaving behind.  Yen was his friend, and so were a couple of the soldiers he worked with.  There was no way of knowing if he’d ever run into T’Challa again, or if it’d be possible to call Khnel if he needed to talk to her.  He was reminded of leaving his family in order to join World War II, only back then everyone was going, even Stevie eventually finding his way.  Hopefully this time things weren’t going to end the same way, with Bucky never again seeing the majority of those he left behind.

            “Winter,” Char’ra’s voice came over the radio.

            “What’s up?”

            “You’re being called back to base.”

            “Something happen?”

            “If you’re thinking a battle broke out, you’d be wrong.  Just come back in, Lo’m is being sent out to finish your patrol.”

            Bucky quickly ran through various scenarios which would have him called in early that weren’t related to having to fight something.

            “Does this have something to do with Kit?” he asked as he turned and started jogging back to the facility.

            “I don’t know.  Dr. Khnel told me to call you in, so I’m calling you in.”

            Bucky shifted from a jog to a flat out run.  It might have nothing to do with Kit.  It was possible that Khnel just needed to talk to him about something.  Maybe she wanted to talk about Steve.  But then maybe it _was_ about Kit.

            “Where am I heading once inside?” Bucky asked Char’ra.

            “Uhh,” there was a brief pause as she pulled away from her mic in the command centre to check.  “Dr. Khnel’s office.”

            The facility came into view between the bushes and trees much faster than it would have for a regular man.  Bucky made his way to the closest door, which was barely more than a hatch.  It was hidden away among a tumble of rocks and was rarely used as an entrance.  The purpose for the door was as an emergency exit, but by hammering his fist just shy of hard enough to dent it, calling out his ID, and staring down a camera installed with facial recognition software, Bucky got the guard inside to open it up.

            “Thanks,” Buck said as he blew past the guard and took the stairs two and sometimes three at a time.  An elevator might have been quicker, but he didn’t think he’d be able to tolerate waiting around for one and then standing still as it ascended.  Bucky focused on his breathing and the movement of his body.  He left more than one dent in the railing as he grabbed it to turn more quickly on the landings.

            By the time he reached the level Khnel’s office was on, he was surprisingly out of breath.  Not wanting to alarm anyone, Bucky managed to slow his pace down to a regular walk.  It also gave him enough time to be breathing normally when he reached her door.  It was currently closed so he knocked upon the wood.  Instead of being asked to come in like he was used to, Bucky was surprised when Khnel opened the door.

            “You forgot to check in your rifle,” she told him, her eyes upon the weapon slung over his shoulder.

            “When I heard that you were asking for me I took the quickest route here, which didn’t include swinging by the armoury.”  Bucky attempted to look past Khnel, but there was too much of an angle to see her couches.

            “She’s not here,” Khnel told him, stepping away from the door.

            “Where is she?” Bucky asked, following her in.  “Did you tell her?”

            “I told her.”

            “Why?”  He held back the small flare of anger that flashed in his gut.

            “Because it would have hurt you to tell her, and it would have hurt her more to hear it coming form you.”

            Bucky’s first instinct was to reject what she said, but he gave it time to turn over in his mind and he understood that she was right.  He didn’t think she should have done it without first consulting him, but it was probably for the best that she talked to Kit.

            “So where is she?” he asked, his emotions deflated.

            “In the room you share.  Dr. Yen is with her.”

            “But I wasn’t told to go there, so what did you want to talk about?”

            “Sit,” Khnel commanded, pointing to one of the chairs before her desk as she sat behind it.

            Bucky leaned his rifle against the side of the chair as he sat in it.

            “Do you know why Captain Rogers is coming?”

            “He needs help.  I don’t know the details but he needs both T’Challa and I to back him up on some sort of mission.  Sam will be coming as well, maybe others, although he’s currently surveilling someone and won’t be coming here with Steve.”

            “All true things that King T’Challa already told me.  No, what I was wondering is why he’s coming here.  Why didn’t he ask you and the Black Panther to meet him wherever the mission is taking place?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “I don’t believe you.”

            “What am I supposed to say to that?”

            “The truth.”

            “And if I honestly don’t know it?”

            “Theorize then.  Why do you think he would come here?”  Khnel was being unexpectedly hard, bordering on hostile.

            “Maybe he needs something from Wakanda other than us.  Perhaps he’s planning on borrowing the new VTOL but needs to check it out first.  Could be there’s something he needs to tell us in person before we get to where we need to be.  Why do you need to know?”

            “Because I need to know what’s happening.”

            Bucky suddenly realized that this wasn’t about him.  “You’re worried for T’Challa.”

            “He is our king.  I do not like the idea of him heading into a dangerous situation without knowing all the facts available.”

            “Well, you can ask Steve yourself when he gets here.”

            “I suppose I can.”

            “Is there anything else you need from me, or can I go be with Kit now?”

            “Return your rifle first.  Maybe grab a bite to eat.  I believe Kit needs some more time to process without your presence.”

            “Yeah, maybe.”  Bucky found himself glad to be leaving her office.  He was angry with the way she had treated him, even if he understood why.  Angry enough that he planned to ignore her advice.  He got all the way to the communal area outside the room he shared with Kit before stopping.  Seeing that the glass was opaque jarred his thoughts just enough to send them down a different path.  If the glass wasn’t transparent, it meant she didn’t want to be seen by anyone she didn’t expressly allow to see her.  While Bucky had always been on the allowed list, he wondered if maybe right now he should voluntarily keep himself off of it.  Either way, showing up with a rifle didn’t seem like the greatest idea.

            Bucky made his way down to the armoury, taking the stairs again but this time so that it would take longer.  He checked in, cleaned, and returned the rifle to its proper place, as well as the extra ammo he always brought with him.  Afterward, he climbed back up the stairs, trying to think of what he should say to Kit.  What he _could_ say to Kit.  Steve was going to be there tomorrow.  They didn’t have much time.  But of course, there was no reason Bucky couldn’t come back.  If he didn’t get killed, he’d come back.  It wasn’t like he had a home anywhere else.

            When he reached the door, he still didn’t know what to say, but he didn’t want to waste anymore time lingering around outside.  The door was locked.  Bucky knocked with his metal hand, making doubly sure Kit would know it was him before he input the code.

            As he pushed through the door, Bucky’s eyes darted to the bed and then the desk.  He had to be all the way in the room before he could see Kit sitting beside Yen on the couch.  Yen’s laptop was on Bucky’s chair, and based on the audio he could hear coming from it, they were watching some sort of anime.  Kit wasn’t crying, but her face had the raw look of someone who had been not a terribly long time ago.  There was a moment where the only sound was the anime, and then Yen turned to Kit.

            “Do you want me to stay?” he asked her.

            “No,” she shook her head.  “But don’t leave until this episode is over.”

            Kit scooted to the middle cushion and offered Bucky a smile.  He crossed the room and sat beside her, glad to feel her weight lean against him.

            Bucky had no idea what was happening in the Japanese cartoon.  There was some weird-eyed frog the characters kept talking to and were fighting over, running around with the thing in a bizarre mansion.  Even the subtitles weren’t helping Bucky understand the context.  Yen was laughing, so it was a comedy, or at least a comedic episode.  Kit didn’t laugh, but she did occasionally smile and Buck was glad that she had a friend like Yen in her life.

            When the episode ended, Yen sat up and closed his laptop.

            “We can watch more tomorrow night,” he told Kit, giving her knee a squeeze.

            “Yeah,” she nodded, neither of them verbally bringing up the fact that Bucky was probably going to be gone tomorrow night, but knowing that full well anyway.

            As Yen headed for the door, he turned and gave Kit an encouraging smile and then nodded to Bucky.  Kit returned his smile as Bucky nodded back.  Then the doctor had left and the two of them were alone.  Bucky opened his mouth, unsure what was going to come out of it.  He never got to find out.

            “No.”  Kit placed her hand over his mouth.  “We both know the score.  There’s no reason to talk about it, is there?”  She removed her hand.

            “I suppose not,” Bucky agreed.

            “Let’s spend what time we have doing things we like together.”

            “What do you plan to start with?”

            “I’m a mess.  I was thinking we could finally try fitting in that tub together.”

            “I’m game.”

            Kit ran her hands up his chest, around to the back of his neck, and then up into his hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted late again! It was my mom's birthday yesterday so I got distracted and forgot. Also, I'm sorry there's still no Steve! I feel like I'm teasing you guys. To be fair, this chapter was originally supposed to combined with the last one, but because of the holidays and the aforementioned birthday I've been super busy and needed to give myself the extra week. So, yeah.


	25. Chapter 25

            Kit barely slept.  She didn’t want to.  Sometimes her body fought her and she drifted off anyway, too exhausted to remain conscious.  When she did manage to stay awake, she listened to Bucky breathe and felt his heart beat.  She was committing them to memory, as if they weren’t already a part of her.  His smell would be harder to hold in her mind.  While scents summoned memories, Kit didn’t know how to summon the memory of a scent.

            In the early hours of morning, sleep over took her for a few hours.  When she woke up, it was because Bucky was shifting positions.  He never moved in his sleep and was skilled at staying still for long periods of time, so if he was moving at all, he must have been awake for awhile and more than likely had to piss.

            “It’s okay if you need to get up,” Kit mumbled, still half asleep.

            “I don’t _need_ to just yet.”

            Kit was tempted to say nothing.  “I don’t want you bursting your bladder for me.  If you gotta go, then get up and go.”  She pushed very gently against his legs with hers.

            Bucky didn’t argue and slid out of bed.  Kit didn’t open her eyes, but listened as he padded across the room.  He left the bathroom door open while he pissed, which allowed Kit to hear just how much he had been holding in.  It had been the right decision to make him get up.

            After emptying his bladder and washing his hands, Bucky returned to bed, sliding in easily around her.

            “What time is it?” Kit asked, still refusing to open her eyes.

            “Just after nine.”

            “And when is he expected?”  There was no need for her to elaborate on who she was referring to.

            “One o’clock.”

            “So in four hours.”

            “Yeah.”

            “We should probably get up then.”

            Neither of them made a move to do anything.

            “We’re getting up,” Kit decided.  She had to be strong.  She knew this day was coming and had had plenty of time to prepare for it.  Today was going to require all her strength.

            When Kit began to rise, Bucky started to move as well.  “Do you have any plans for today?” he asked.

            “Wash first.”

            They took a shower, put on fresh clothes, and went to get breakfast.  A normal morning in all but feeling.  Kit didn’t eat much, she mostly just picked at some fruit and forced down toast.

            “Eat a big meal,” she advised Bucky.

            “Yeah?”

            “You’ll need the energy and who knows when you’ll be able eat another meal like this one.”

            “Good point.  Think I should pack a lunch?”  He was attempting to joke.

            “I’m going to put together a pack for you while you meet with Steve.”

            “I thought you’d want to meet him.”

            “I will.  Just after you talk.  I figure you should have a reunion with just the two of you first.”

            “You know, for me, it’s been only a couple of months since I last saw him.”

            “No it hasn’t.  You didn’t trust your own mind then.  Your memories were still fighting themselves.  That wasn’t a reunion.  Besides, for him it’s been nearly four years now.”

            “I guess you discussed all this with Dr. Khnel.”

            “It came up.”

            Bucky took Kit’s advice, eating all the food he took as well as what Kit couldn’t finish.

            “What’s next on the agenda?” Bucky was letting Kit call all the shots, just as he had last night.

            “We’re going to go through your stuff.  What you may need goes in one pile, what you don’t, another.”

            “What happens to the stuff I don’t need?”

            “We’re going to put it in packing boxes.”

            “I’ll be coming back.”

            Kit thought he truly believed that.  And maybe he would, but she wasn’t nearly as optimistic.  As much as she needed him, wanted him, in her life, there were others who needed him more.  There were lives that he was going to save.  “Your stuff is just going in boxes.  I just… need to not see it while you’re gone.”

            “Okay.”

            They went through al of Bucky’s things together, quickly sorting out what definitely wouldn’t be needed.  Mostly what he owned was clothes.

            “How did I accumulate all this stuff?” Bucky commented as he put his colouring books and pencil crayons into a box.

            “Well, Khnel and T’Challa gave you a bunch to start with, I bought you some things, and you had Yen pick up some for you.”

            “Speaking of which, I guess I won’t be needing this suit jacket or my sneakers.”

            “Probably not.  Not unless you need them for some sort of stealth mission where you have to blend in somewhere.”

            “I’m surprisingly good at blending in when I have to.”

            “I could probably spot you.”

            “I don’t doubt that.  Can I keep these?”  He held up Kit’s extra pair of aviators.

            “Sure.”

            They eventually reduced his stuff down to a few T-shirts, a sweater, an extra pair of pants, and a few pairs of socks and underwear.

            “I’m taking this,” he placed his rubber ball on the pile of clothes.

            “I’ll grab your toothbrush.  Double check the closet in case we missed something.”

            In the bathroom, Kit had to pause and take a couple of deep breaths before the mirror.  Sometimes it felt like she was just helping Bucky pack for a business trip, and in a way she was, only there was no return date.  No way to know how long the mission was going to last.

            After nearly cracking the sink from squeezing the edges too hard, Kit pulled herself back together, gathered up Bucky’s bathroom supplies, and returned to the bedroom.

            “I believe that’s everything,” Bucky told her as she placed the items she had retrieved on the workbench with the others.  “So where’s the bag this stuff goes into?”  Everything else was already in the packing boxes.

            “Don’t worry about it.  I got that stuff covered.”

            “If you say so.  We’ve still got a little over an hour and a half before he’s expected to get here.”

            Kit walked over to the bed and sat on it, picking up their current novel off the headboard in the process.  It was a rather dark thriller.

            “I doubt we’ll be able to finish this in that amount of time.”  While it wasn’t a large novel, they were only about half way through it.

            “Probably not.  We can try if you want to.”

            “Is there anything _you_ want to do?”

            Bucky shrugged.  “Nothing I can think of off the top of my head.”

            “Well you have to think of something, because I don’t want to.”

            “Can we read the book then?  Are you up for that?”

            “Of course.”

            Bucky crossed over to the bed and they got comfortable together.  Falling into reading wasn’t as easy as it usually was for Kit.  Her mind would wander and she’d lose her place.  Reading out loud was helping, she was forced to look at the words and not just let them slip through her mind.  Bucky didn’t care when she had to go back and reread sections.  He was as patient as ever.  Eventually she was able to sink into the story, to be somewhere else, to be _someone_ else, if only for a little while.

            All too soon an alert went off on Kit’s computer.  The lid was up, and the screensaver automatically blinked off so that they could see the message it had just received from the facility’s internal network.  The Quinjet was five minutes from landing.

            “I guess he’s here,” Bucky commented.  Kit heard a mixture of joy and sadness in his voice.  She knew this situation must be pulling him apart.  He loved both of them and he was about to leave one in order to go off with the other.

            “You best get going.”  The meeting was planned to happen in Bucky’s old room.

            “You sure you don’t want to come with?”

            “I’ll meet him later.  I’m going to pack your bag.”

            Bucky leaned over and kissed her.  “Save this spot,” he said, pointing to where they had stopped in the book.

            “Always.”

            “Better than always.”

            With the same decisiveness he used when hanging up his phone, Bucky rolled off the bed and walked to the door.  He was half way out before he paused.

            “You know I probably won’t be talking to Steve for long.  You’ll have to pack fast.”  Bucky gave her one of his grins.

            “I’m on it.”  She grinned back.

            Once Bucky was gone, Kit got off her bed and crossed to the pile of clothes that were to go with Bucky.  She ran her hands over the fabric.  Even if Bucky returned, these clothes probably wouldn’t.  The footage Kit had seen of the kinds of fights people like him got into weren’t regular attire friendly.  But then, that’s why she had some other items specially made for him.

            Picking up the stack of clothes and bathroom supplies, Kit carried them out of her room.  She went down a few halls until she reached the lab of the man who was in charge of taking care of the Black Panther suit.  The armour almost never needed repair, but they always had someone on call for resizing and for upgrades.

            “Is it done?” Kit asked when she stepped into the lab.

            “All in here,” Al’lan said, patting the tactical backpack.

            “Thank you so much.”  Kit picked up the bag and snooped inside before putting in Bucky’s things.

            “I told T’Challa of your request,” he said, somewhat surprising Kit.  “He signed off on it, and said it was alright if I add a few gadgets some other members here have been working on.  They’ve all been tested, but never in the field.  There’s a manual inside that explains what everything is and what everything does.”

            “He’ll love that,” Kit commented with a roll of her eyes.  She’d tell Bucky to read it during his flight to wherever Steve was going to take him, so that knowledge would be somewhere inside his head when the time came.  “Thank you for all of this.”

            “Well, if T’Challa ends up going with them, the more prepared they are, the better.”

            Kit was amused by the informal way in which Al’lan referred to his king, but then the man was getting old and had spent the majority of his years around the royal family and the succession of the Black Panthers.  His family was as tied to Wakanda as T’Challa’s.

            “Let me know if there’s ever anything I can do for you,” Kit told him as she slung the bag over a shoulder.

            “I certainly will.”

            Kit ducked back out of the lab, having another stop to make.  When she neared the elevators, however, she paused.  Based on the timing, Steve would be there any second.  She didn’t want to cross his path, but she _was_ curious to see him.  She lingered down a hallway, somewhere where she could see anyone getting off the elevators while being unobtrusive.  She leaned against a wall and fiddled with the straps of the backpack.

            “You must be Kit.”

            Kit startled and wheeled around, nearly falling over as she did.

            “Whoa, sorry there.”

            For a moment, it was impossible to breath as Kit found herself looking upon Captain America, his hand placed lightly on her arm as he had worried she was about to fall and made to catch her.

            “Stevie!” was the only word to escape once Kit was capable of exhaling.

            Steve stood up straight, grinning in a manner strangely similar to Bucky’s.  “Yeah, you’re definitely Kit.  Steve Rogers, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

            Kit robotically shook his hand, her mouth still gapping from her surprise.

            “You were expecting me to take the elevator, huh?” Steve continued.  “Yeah, I took the stairs.  Been having a weirdly rough time in elevators recently.”

            Kit shook her head, finally getting her thoughts back.  “How do you know who I am?”

            “Bucky described you in his emails.  I didn’t think there would be two women here with metal hands,” he pointed to hers.  “At least not ones who are spying on the elevators.”

            “I wasn’t spying,” Kit blurted out, in a bad attempt at lying.  “And what emails?”

            “Bucky and I have been emailing.  Didn’t he tell you?”

            Kit’s surprised brain fog returned, and she took several seconds to respond.  “No.  He never did.”

            “Sorry.  He mentioned that he was keeping them secret, but I didn’t think that included from you.  I assumed he was just hiding them from His Majesty, and a Dr. Khnel he’s mentioned several times.  She sounds fierce.”

            “She is.”  Kit didn’t know why she didn’t think of this sooner.  Bucky was on her tablet half the time, there was absolutely no reason he couldn’t find a way of contacting Steve.  Hell, they had probably set up accounts with which to communicate with each other before he was ever frozen here.  Kit might have been angry had she not felt stupid.

            “Don’t worry, he had nothing but good things to say about you,” Steve told her.

            “Someone else once told me something similar.  He’s waiting for you, but the way.  Do you need me to show you where?”

            “Thank you, but I know my way.  I was hoping we might talk, get to know each other somewhat.  It’s not every day that someone manages to capture the heart of my best friend so thoroughly.”

            “Is there time for that?  I was under the impression that there was a very important mission you had to under take.”

            “We can only leave as fast as the Quinjet is refuelled and receives a few repairs.  It’s been through some fairly bad… turbulence.”  Steve’s smiling was as disarming in person as it was in the photographs that Kit had seen.  She never thought she’d be able to hate him, he was Bucky’s best friend after all, but she found it difficult to summon form any of the animosity she had built up toward him over the months.

            “Well… Why don’t we talk after you meet with Bucky?  He’s waiting.”

            “All right.  The two of you can give me a tour.”  Steve stepped around Kit in order to head toward Bucky’s old room.

            “Steve?” Kit said, causing him to turn back and face her.  She thought maybe she should say this before he spoke to Buck.  “He thinks he’s coming back here.  I think we both know different.  You’ve been emailing with him to know his state of mind, not just because you wanted to talk to him, right?”

            Steve look down at his feet, this sort of pained smile crossing his face.  Kit had nailed it on the head.

            “Just… Don’t tell him how much time has passed.  I don’t know if it’s from the freezing or if he’s always been that way, but when he’s engaged with something he doesn’t seem to note the passage of time very well.”  Kit had only noticed that a few times, but it was something Khnel had told her during one of their talks.  Depending on the mission, days, weeks, or even months might go by without Bucky really realizing it.

            “Understood,” Steve nodded.  He looked like he was about to walk away but didn’t, mulling something over.  “You’re going to miss him, aren’t you.”

            It wasn’t a question but Kit answered anyway.  “Of course.  I mean, you did, right?”

            A small laugh escaped the man.  “You know you could come with us, right?  The Quinjet regularly needs the attentions of a good mechanic, especially now that Tony’s not taking care of it.  Sam’s suit, too.”

            “The offer is tempting, but no.”  Kit had already thought of that, liked to daydream about it on occasion, but reality was different.  “I can’t do that.  I can’t… put myself so close to danger again.  I don’t think I could handle it.”

            Steve nodded again.  “I didn’t think so, but I thought I should ask.”

            “Go talk to Bucky.  He’s probably wondering what the hell is taking you so long.”

            “It was nice to finally meet you, Kit.”

            “Like wise.”  It was only a little bit of a lie.

            Steve turned and walked away, appearing to know exactly where he was going.  Kit suspected that T’Challa may have given Steve something of a tour when he was last here, when Bucky was first frozen.  The room he was heading to may have even been prearranged.  Or it could be that Steve was good at looking confidant even while hopelessly lost.

            Kit shifted the backpack on her shoulders and went to find Yen.  He and a few of the other doctors had put together some medical supplies for Bucky to take with him.  Hopefully they would never need to be used on him.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MERRY CHRISTMAS!

            Bucky investigated the room that was once his.  He had gotten so used to the dimness of Kit’s room, that he had forgotten just how bright it was in there.  Also how boring and dull all the grey was.  The comfy green chair had been removed, returned to its companions in the nook outside.  The bed and any remaining health monitors were also gone.  Only the table, the four chairs around it, and the completely empty dresser remained.  The bathroom smelled faintly of cleaning chemicals, and all the prints he’d left on the window had been wiped clean.  There was no evidence of Bucky’s stay there, beyond his own screaming memories.

            After a thorough inspection of the place, Bucky started to pace.  He wondered what was taking Steve so long.  He wished he hadn’t left his rubber ball with Kit.  His hand, the one that hadn’t been replaced, clenched and flexed.  There was nothing to do in the room.  Besides his pistol and a pen, he had nothing on him other than his clothes.  The pen might have been useful if there had been something to draw or write on.  He could always try using his left hand to write on his right, but then he didn’t want to be covered in doodles when Steve finally got there.  Emails weren’t the same as a face to face talk.  It was easy to lie in emails, or gloss over details.

            Where the hell was Steve?  He should have landed by now, and it shouldn’t take this long for him to get from the hangar to here.  Maybe there was something wrong with the Quinjet that needed addressing first?  Or T’Challa needed a word with him?  Maybe Khnel had cornered Steve in order to demand mission details.  She was certainly the kind of woman who’d do that.  How long had it been anyway?  Bucky wasn’t wearing a watch and the clock had been removed from the room.  Maybe not as much time had passed as he thought?

            Bucky had wandered over to the window and was looking out at the Black Panther statue when the door opened.  Without really knowing why, Bucky immediately stood to attention.  The confused look on Steve’s face as he entered turned out to be worth it, but when he also stood to attention in response, it was actually hilarious.  In the end, Bucky couldn’t help but break into a grin.  Steve did as well, while sighing with relief.

            “You had me thinking that I’ve been emailing someone else all this time,” he admitted.

            Bucky stepped over to shake Steve’s hand, glad that he had the sense of mind to do so.

            “It’s been too long,” Buck told him.

            One of them turned the handshake into a back-slapping hug, although it was impossible to tell who.  Bucky felt a pressure build in his chest, and it wasn’t from Steve nearly crushing him.  He had missed his best friend, and felt ashamed that he hadn’t told Stevie to come visit, or found a way to go out and visit him.  He remembered the times he had tried to kill Steve.

            “You’re looking good,” Steve told him, ending the hug and holding Bucky at arm’s length while pretending he didn’t notice the wet shine in his eyes.  “I like the hair cut.”

            “Yeah, Kit did it for me,” Bucky told him, running his hand over his head.  “Your hair’s the same as ever.”

            “I met Kit, by the way.”

            “What?  When?”

            “Just now.  I bumped into her in the hallway.”

            “Well, then I guess I don’t have to worry about how I was going to introduce you two.”  Which was actually a relief for Bucky, all things considered.

            “Sorry, but I spilled the beans on our emails,” Steve said with a classic sheepish Stevie look.  “I thought you had told her.”

            “And now I don’t have to worry about explaining those either.  Did she seem pissed?”

            “No, just surprised.  And maybe a little embarrassed about not knowing.”

            “I was often lying on her couch while emailing you, and she never noticed.”

            “It really is great to see you looking like yourself,” Steve changed topics.  “Well, almost like yourself.”  He punched Bucky’s metal arm and with some force.

            Bucky couldn’t say that he felt like himself, not his old self anyway.  “I certainly feel better than when you last saw me,” he said instead.  “More… in control.  Less like I’m going to suddenly punch you in the face.”

            “That is very good to know.”  Steve’s grin was as shit-eating as ever.

            “So what have you been up to?” Bucky asked, meaning it to be conversational.

            “I’ll fill you in once we’re in the air,” Steve answered, assuming he was talking about whatever mission this was about.  Maybe Steve hadn’t been up to anything else lately.  “That is a hell of a view,” he commented, making his way past Bucky in order to look out the window.  There was actually a bit of sun cutting through the clouds, because of course Captain America would bring the goddamn sun with him.

            “Better than the one from Avengers Tower?” Bucky wondered.

            “No contest, Avengers Tower looks over New York.  It’s just unfortunate that I don’t get to see that view anymore.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            “Last I checked, you don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

            “It’s my fault that you and Stark don’t communicate anymore.  I don’t think I apologized for that yet.”

            “I have a feeling that that would have happened anyway.  Even before you were blamed for the UN bombing, Stark and I were butting heads over…  Well, most things, to be honest.”

            “But maybe you could’ve worked it out if I hadn’t killed his parents.”

            “It’s not your fault, Bucky.”

            “But it is.  Sure, I had no choice in the matter, but it was still me.  Don’t take that away from me.  I need to accept those memories as a part of who I am.”

            Steve nodded, feigning understanding, although Bucky knew he couldn’t understand.  Unless he had been brainwashed and made to do awful things he hadn’t told Bucky about, he couldn’t understand.  Everyone was a culmination of their memories, even the bad ones.

            “So,” Steve turned away from the window with a smile and a cheerful mood, “show me around.  Let me see what you’ve been doing here.”

            “Yeah, all right.”

            So Bucky took Steve around the facility, showing him places he’d mentioned in their emails.  He took him upstairs to show him the library and Khnel’s office, although she wasn’t in.  They headed to the cafeteria, where they each grabbed a snack, and Steve was stopped by some people who were fans and wanted photos with him.  Bucky had to translate for a few of them while doing his best not to laugh at how uncomfortable Steve was with the attention.  He was polite and smiled his best for all the photos, putting on the showman persona that he had learned during his propaganda days, but Buck could still see the small awkward kid that lived within Captain America.  The scrawny runt was used to going unseen in a crowd, at least until he opened his mouth to call out some injustice he had seen.

            “I’m thinking of growing a beard,” Steve commented as they finally managed to escape the cafeteria.

            “I have no idea what that would look like,” Bucky realized.  “Probably a lumberjack.”

            “Well, I have spent a lot of time in the woods lately.”

            “Trade in your uniform for some plaid, and the image will be complete.”

            Bucky would’ve liked to show Steve more of the place, but figured it would take too much time to bring him to the gym, and the pool, and the shooting range, and the zoo.  Instead, he brought his friend to the room he shared with Kit, wondering if she was going to be there or not.

            “So are your memories of before the war doing any better?” Steve asked as they walked.

            “Mostly.  I mean, how much of that time am I even supposed to remember?  People lose memories from their childhood all the time.  Although one thing’s been bugging me.  What was the name of the guy who ran that sweets shop we used to love going to?  The one who always chased us out because he knew we couldn’t afford anything?”

            “Pops.”

            “No, that was the name of the place.”

            “Yeah, because the guy was called Pops,” Steve laughed.  “We used to make jokes about him bopping kids with his broom.  Pops bops.”

            “Oh yeah,” a smile crossed Bucky’s face as he remembered dashing out of the store, a broom being waved threateningly at him from beyond the counter.  “I don’t think he actually ever hit anyone, did he?  I don’t remember seeing it ever happen, but all the kids swore it did.”

            “Pops could barely move around his store, I don’t think he’d have been able to catch any of us in order to actually hit someone.  Still, he scared the hell out of me when he decided it was time for a kid to leave.”

            “Yeah, me too.  Why didn’t we go there when we got older?”

            “The place burned down.”

            “Right.”

            They reached the room, and Bucky saw that the glass wall was at its usual setting.  Kit was inside, sitting at her workbench with her back to them, and looking at something in her hands.  Bucky knocked as they entered so as not to surprise her.

            “I hear you two already met,” Bucky said to Kit.

            “Yeah, hello again.  Look, I found your camera.”  She held out the device to Buck.  “It somehow ended up in my box of wiring.  You are such a sneak, there are a lot more photos of me on there than I realized.”

            “Khnel told me to take pictures of anything I liked,” Bucky shrugged as he took the camera back.  It had been missing for quite awhile, he couldn’t imagine how if got in the wiring box.

            Kit turned to Steve.  “You would not believe how many photos this guy has taken of himself making stupid faces.  The narcissist.”

            “I gotta make up for all the years of selfies that I missed.”  He quickly turned the camera and snapped a picture of Steve when he wasn’t paying attention.  He always liked those photos best, like all the ones he had of Kit working, or watching TV, or sleeping.  They were more natural.

            “Can I see?” Steve asked, holding out his hand for the camera.

            “Wait.”  Bucky thought for a minute, running his head through what kind of things he had photographed.  “Okay, yeah, here.  Had to make sure I hadn’t taken any dick pics first.”  Really, he wanted to make sure he had never photographed Kit while she was indecent.  He was generally too distracted for picture taking during those times, however.

            “That’s a thing?” Steve wondered as he looked at the picture Bucky had just taken and then a few others.

            “You clearly don’t spend enough time on the internet,” Kit told him.

            “I think you have that backwards.  Other people spend too much time on there.  Here, get together, I’m going to take a picture of you two.”

            “Um, okay.”  Kit seemed surprised and even awkward about the idea.  She wasn’t used to having her picture taken, which was the other reason Bucky took most of them on the sly.  She stood up and Bucky put his arm around her, adopting what he hoped was a decent pose.

            “Three, two, one,” Steve counted down for them before taking the picture.  Due to the dimness of the room the flash went off.

            “Wow, that’s bright.”  Bucky blinked away the spots that had appeared.

            “You think it was bright for you, try being me,” Kit commented.

            “Yeah, but you don’t get after images.”

            “Let me see,” Kit asked for the camera, and Steve handed it over.  “Not bad.  Neither of us blinked.”

            “You know Bucky’s right, you do have nice eyes,” Steve told her.

            Kit promptly turned a vivid shade of red.  She turned on Bucky.  “Did you tell him to say that?”

            Bucky grinned.  “No, but I’m certainly glad he did.  Now you have an outside opinion.”

            “You’re both jerks.  Now stand together, I’m taking a picture of the assholes.”

            In the photo both Steve and Bucky were laughing due to the string of harmless insults Kit hurled at them both.  She then hooked the camera up to her laptop so that she could copy all the photos over.  Bucky made sure she didn’t delete them from the camera in the process, because he planned to take it with him, and he wanted to have a picture of Kit on there.

            “So what do you think of the place?” Kit asked Steve.

            “You have a very small bed for two people, and a very old couch,” Steve commented.

            “That couch is the best,” Bucky told him.

            “Mind if I use your bathroom?” Steve asked.  “It was a long flight.”

            “It’s just through there,” Kit pointed.

            “Thanks.”

            Once Steve had closed that door, Bucky turned to Kit.  “How are you doing?”

            “I’m trying not to think about it.”

            “This my pack?” he asked of the bag sitting on the workbench.

            “Yeah.”  She told him about all the stuff people had given her in order to give to him.  Including the manuals that went with them.

            “Great,” Bucky said, oozing sarcasm.

            “I knew you’d love that,” Kit teased.  She was holding up well, but Bucky saw her expression falter.

            He walked right up to her and slid his arm around her back, drawing her to him.  She rested her head against his shoulder and took a deep breath.

            “I need to tell you something,” she eventually said to his neck when they heard the toilet flush on the other side of the wall.

            “What’s that?” Bucky held her back just a little so that he could look down at her face.

            “Later,” she shook her head and stepped out from his encircling arms.

            Bucky’s brows pinched together, confused, but then Steve had finished washing his hands and returned to the room.

            “Did I interrupt something?” he worried, looking from one face to the other.  He seemed prepared to step back into the hallway stub and retreat into the bathroom.

            “No,” Kit smiled for him.  “I was just telling Bucky about the gear everyone here donated to him.  I should probably tell you about some of it too.”

            So the three of them hung out for awhile, getting along quite amicably.  Kit clearly loved hearing Steve’s stories about Bucky, and Bucky’s stories about Steve.  It was probably Bucky’s most favourite hour, hanging out with the two people he loved best.  Although Kit’s need to talk later bothered him, he refused it let it bring down his mood.  Eventually, though that time ended, as it must.  T’Challa was the one to bring them back to reality.

            “I thought I might find you here,” he said as he entered the room, the door having been left open.  Kit sat up much straighter than normal the moment she heard him.

            “The Quinjet ready?” Steve asked him.

            “It is,” T’Challa nodded.

            “You look like you’re suited up to come with us,” Bucky noticed.

            “I am.”

            “Are you sure you’re not needed here more?” Steve asked the king.

            “My absence will be noticed by some, but I have an excellent team who can more than manage things while I’m away.”

            “We better get going then.  You ready, Buck?”

            “Yeah, just give us a minute.”

            “Of course.”  T’Challa stepped back outside, where he was immediately confronted by one of his aides who wanted to clear up a last couple of matters.

            “Don’t take too long,” Steve said as he followed the Black Panther out, closing the door behind him.

            “So what did you want to tell me?  Should I make the wall opaque?” Bucky wondered.

            “No, it’s fine.  This might be easier for me to say, being able to see Steve and T’Challa waiting for you.”

            “Say what?”

            “I know you’re loyal.  Boneheadedly so.

            “Not sure that’s a word.”

            “Let me finish.  I understand that what we have here is perfectly real, but I also understand that it might have a lot to do with proximity.”

            “Kit-”

            “I said let me finish!  If you meet someone else, don’t let me hold you back, okay?  If there’s someone out there who makes you happy, you be with them.”

            “I’m coming back,” Bucky told her for what felt like the umpteenth time.

            “But if you don’t.  You can love more than one person, it’s okay.  Don’t let me hold you back.  If I somehow find out that your thoughts of me back here are keeping you from happiness out there, I…  I don’t know.  I certainly won’t be happy.”

            Bucky sighed.  “All right.”  He knew Kit needed him to agree.  “On one condition.  You do the same, okay?  I mean, I know you pretty much never meet anyone new here, but the same applies to you, okay?”

            Kit nodded.  “Maybe another Popsicle human will come under our care,” she teased, although her heart wasn’t in the joke.

            “So is this kind of like a break up?” Bucky wondered.

            “Yes, but no.  I don’t know.  We’re just… coming to an agreement.”

            “Then I guess we’re agreed.”  Bucky took Kit’s hand and shook it.  He then pulled her to him for a kiss, and then planted a second kiss on her forehead.  “Are you going to come see me off from the hangar?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Are you ready?”

            Kit squeezed him tight.  If her metal hands had also included elbows, Bucky was sure she could have snapped his ribs.  After a couple of seconds, she released him and stepped back, her metal eyes shining more than usual but her face free of tears.  “Let’s go.”

            They joined Steve and T’Challa in the common area, as well as a bunch of T’Challa’s assistants.  Khnel was among them, although she remained silent.  Suspiciously so.

            Bucky and Kit held hands as they all walked to the elevators, Bucky only letting go once in order to adjust the straps on his backpack.  Steve walked just ahead of them, looking over his shoulder with a raise of his eyebrows.  Bucky knew he was commenting on T’Challa’s retinue, and how they were basically just being swept along by it.  When the elevator doors opened, however, only T’Challa and Khnel accompanied Steve, Bucky, and Kit inside.  The rest quickly dispersed to their assigned tasks, disappearing as though they had never been there.

            “You know what I just realized?” Bucky said to T’Challa as they elevator cab descended.

            “What’s that?”

            “We never had that beer.”

            T’Challa laughed.  “No we did not.  Perhaps once this mission is over.”

            “Perhaps.  Oh, Steve, this is Dr. Khnel, the one who fixed my brain,” Bucky quickly introduced them.

            “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”  Steve offered his hand with a smile.

            “Likewise,” Khnel replied, shaking the offered hand but not returning the smile.

            When Steve turned away, his face hidden from Khnel, he mouthed a sarcastic ‘wow’ at Bucky.  Buck had done his best to describe Khnel’s cold exterior in his emails, but it seemed that Steve hadn’t completely believed him.

            The elevator doors opened into the cliff side hangar, and all five of them disembarked.  The Quinjet was parked at the end, past the new prototype VTOL and T’Challa’s personal jet.

            “Are you riding with us, Your Majesty, or will you be flying yourself?” Steve wondered as they crossed the space, his voice competing with the sound of rivet guns and blowtorches.

            “I will be coming in your Quinjet, if there’s room for me.”

            “Plenty,” Steve told him.

            Bucky felt Kit squeeze his hand as they approached the Quinjet and squeezed back.

            “You going to be all right?” Bucky asked in a lowered voice.

            She just nodded, possibly not trusting her own voice.

            Yen was waiting for them at the bottom of the Quinjet’s loading ramp.  Bucky quickly introduced Steve, both of them politely and enthusiastically shaking each other’s hands.

            “Can I take a minute to look over the Quinjet?” Kit asked Steve.

            “I suppose a minute couldn’t hurt.”

            Kit separated from Bucky and started to perform a walk around.  Buck guessed she was hiding herself within a disguise of work.

            “Your Majesty, I brought those items you requested,” Yen told his king, gesturing to a nearby cart.

            “Very good, thank you Dr. Yen.  Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, if you could come with me for a moment.”  T’Challa walked over to the cart.

            Steve gave Bucky a questioning look, but Buck had no idea what this was about.  He shrugged and shook his head.

            “I understand you left your shield with Mr. Stark,” T’Challa said to Steve.

            “Yeah,” Steve said, not bothering to provide more detail.

            “It doesn’t seem right that you not have your most recognized emblem,” T’Challa told him, “I had this made for you, I hope that’s all right.”  He opened a large drawer in the side of the cart and pulled out a perfect replica of Steve’s shield, paint job and all.

            “Oh wow, thank you,” Steve said, accepting the gift.  “I don’t know what to say.”

            “You don’t need to say anything, just take it and put it to good use.  I will not accept it back if you refuse.”

            “I’ll take it if you refuse,” Bucky offered.

            Steve slung the shield over his arm, testing its weight and remembering the feel of it.  Other than having to adjust the straps some, it was right at home.

            “Bucky, I brought you these from the armoury.  Your squad mates mentioned they were your favourites.”

            Buck laughed as T’Challa opened a few more drawers, revealing a sniper rifle, an assault rifle, and several magazines worth of ammunition for each.  There were even a few knives.

            “I’m gifting them to you.  There’s no need to return them when we’re done.”

            “I didn’t get you anything,” Bucky said as he lifted out the assault rifle.  He checked the serial numbers on it, and sure enough, it was the one he always picked out to bring with him on missions and patrols.

            “Your gifts to him will be keeping him alive and unhurt,” Khnel responded from behind both of them.

            “Dr. Khnel, I shall be fine,” T’Challa sighed.  It seemed the doctor had been rather vocal about her disapproval of him going.

            Khnel just continued to stand there with a her lips pressed tightly together.

            “Now where did my girlfriend go?” Bucky wondered as he headed toward the Quinjet, the rifles in either hand and his pockets full of blades and bullets.

            He found Kit inside, snooping about the cockpit controls.  Bucky put his things down and went over to stand beside her.

            “Does it pass your inspection?” he asked.

            “I hate to admit that Stark did a good job when he built this thing,” she responded.

            “Then don’t.  Tell me its shit, and we’ll steal the prototype.”

            He was glad to hear her laugh.  Bucky glanced over his shoulder and spotted Steve and T’Challa half way up the ramp, giving them a modicum of privacy.

            “I think it’s time.”

            Kit nodded.  “I know.”

            “I still have your phone number memorized.  I’ll call when I can.”

            She turned and kissed his cheek.  “I know you will.  I know you can’t promise me you won’t put yourself in danger, but try to avoid doing anything stupid, okay?”

            “I promise I’ll try, but Steve is known for doing stupid things and I can’t let him go alone.”

            “Watch out for him and T’Challa.”

            “I will.”

            She kissed him and crushed his ribs one last time, then dashed out of the Quinjet before anything else could be said.  Steve and T’Challa came fully aboard, Steve heading straight for the cockpit.

            “You all right?” he asked he stepped past, sliding into the pilot’s seat.

            “I’ll be fine provided you fly better than you drive.”

            Bucky made his way to the top of the loading ramp as the engines started up.  Kit was standing between Yen and Khnel a safe distance back.  He couldn’t think of anything he wanted to say to her at just the minute, and wasn’t sure she wanted him to, but he had to say something.

            “Hey, Yen,” Bucky called out.  “You take care of her for me, all right?”

            Yen gave him a thumbs up, and Kit wrapped her hands around the doctor’s free one.  Bucky pressed the button to close the ramp, the Quinjet already moving forward toward the cliff side opening.  He stood there and watched Kit until the ramp shut, cutting off his view.  He took a moment, holding onto a nearby strut as the Quinjet sped up pulled higher into the sky.  It was time for his mind to go somewhere else, to compartmentalise so as to keep from being distracted.  He gave himself a few more seconds of picturing Kit’s face, then got into mission mode.  His Winter Soldier mindset.  This was just one more scar to bear amongst all the others.

            Bucky crossed back toward the cockpit once the Quinjet was flying smooth and steady.  T’Challa was in the co-pilot’s seat as Steve taught him the specific controls.

            “It’s quite similar to my own,” T’Challa observed.

            Bucky leaned forward between the two seats.  “So, what’s this mission all about then?”

            Steve turned to look at the two of them.  “What have you heard about infinity stones?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END
> 
> Yes, it is done! I posted the final chapter on Christmas, which is either awesome or horrible depending on how you look at it, haha. I hope everyone is having an excellent holiday season this year, and that you enjoyed my not so little story. Will I write something new? Maybe. Will I write a continuation of this story? Uncertain. Right now I have a bunch of my own stuff to work on (hey, take another look at my [Amazon page](https://www.amazon.com/Kristal-Stittle/e/B006NL1X4W)) so I don't know when I'll get back to Fan Fiction. I'll likely be swept up by it again at some point, I just can't predict when that will be. Maybe I'll clean up that random Star Wars thing lurking in my files? Anyway, thank you to everyone who's left me such nice comments over the several months I posted this, they honestly make me super happy and more confident about my work ^_^ You're all the best. CHEERS!


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